


As Not to Squander Time

by rev02a



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale and Crowley Through The Ages (Good Omens), Bottom Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley Was Not Raphael Before Falling (Good Omens), Fluff and Smut, Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), He/Him Pronouns For Aziraphale (Good Omens), He/Him Pronouns For Crowley (Good Omens), Heaven and Hell suck, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Minor Original Character(s), She/Her Pronouns for Crowley (Good Omens), They/Them Pronouns for Beelzebub (Good Omens), Top Aziraphale (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:14:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 37,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27596699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rev02a/pseuds/rev02a
Summary: What if the Arrangement began at the Ark? Instead of centuries apart, Aziraphale and Crowley's lives intertwine.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 34
Kudos: 44





	1. c. 2604 BCE, Pulau Ay, Banda Islands

**Author's Note:**

> “Prehistoric” timelines are hard to follow in lands and cultures where there are no written texts. I’m basing this on archeological notes and later histories—and a lot of creativity.

**c. 2604 BCE, Pulau Ay, Banda Islands**

The Ark slowly fills with animals. Two-by-two the donkeys and monitor lizards and elk and sun bears and ring-tailed lemurs and foxes and peregrine falcons and bobcats and praying mantises and penguins all march up the ramp and onto the ship. It’s oddly tranquil. Aziraphale stands next to Crawly in their little enclosure as rain splashes their faces.

“Well,” Crawly says without an interest in watching the waters rise, “I’ll be off. Enjoy watching humanity drown.”

“It might be that,” the angel considers his words carefully and this stops the demon, “some children could make their way to someplace, erm, drier.”

“Are you suggesting that I defy the Great Plan? Isn’t that a bit rich from a member of the Heavenly Host?” Crawly asks amazed. Aziraphale looks away with a grimace. The demon cocks his head and considers it. “You think anyplace close could constitute?”

Aziraphale wrings his hands. “I should say not. Too many, um, middle management hanging around. I might try farther afield.”

This is the angel that Crawly met on the Eastern Gate of Eden: empathetic and intelligent.He won’t acknowledge how Aziraphale makes his heart skip beats or his palms sweat. To further distract himself from the angel’s beauty, the demon collects some children—any that he can—and they vanish in a swirl of black fabric and feathers. The kids are hysterical when they appear across the globe. He soothes them as best he can with songs and miracles. In the end, he finds some locals who look willing to take on newly orphaned children—he might use a little demonic pressure to see the children adopted. It will take some time to overcome the communication barrier. He doesn’t stick around to watch it happen.

Instead, he walks the beach and watches the lazy lapping turquoise waves. His feet leave prints in the sand for miles. He walks for hours. His thighs chafe and he gets shin splints. Sand clings to his soles, ankles, and tunic. The hem of it drags in the waves when they wash up over his feet. Seabirds flap overhead and call to one another. Crawly studies them as he walks.

In time, Crawly comes upon a village. It’s smaller than the area he dropped the children. Boats bob along the shore where some people fish or dive into the clear water. Domesticated chickens run across the sand and peck at fallen palm bark. Children laugh from inside a bamboo thicket. He counts them as they duck and play among the trees. The people are all busy. He watches a man boil pitch over a fire for his boat. Two teenage boys sharpen knives. A woman wraps a long piece of fabric around her and loops her baby into the sling.

At the last hut, Crawly stops. He squats down to watch a woman grind a nut inside a ceramic pot. She stops and watches him distrustfully. He waits there, his bare toes digging into the sand until she begins again. It’s a heavy scent that tickles his nose. He lets his tongue dart out and taste the air. It’s rich and pungent.

“Nutmeg,” she finally states, rolling the fine brown powder in the bowl.

“A medicine?” he asks.

She nods then pinches some between her fingers and holds it out to him. He takes it and tastes it. It’s sweeter than it smells. Delight dances in his yellow eyes. She chuckles.

“Are you a spirit?” she asks.

He shrugs and says, “Something like that.”

“Will you stay?”

He will. Her hut is small and seems smaller when her three children return from fishing. They stoke the fire and bake crabs over the flames. Crawly helps as he can, offering to fetch water even as they assure he is a guest and should rest. Clearly, the local tradition holds that spirits come seeking shelter.

The youngest son studies him over the fire. “You’re the Serpent,” he declares. “You’ll bless our crops.”

Crawly smiles, letting some of the bitterness of Mesopotamia drain away. “I will.”

The night comes on quickly and they offer him the choice sleeping mat next to the fire. He tries not to wonder if the angel is treading water. In the morning, he rises with the sun and slinks out of the hut before the children wake. The daylight paints the tips of the waves bright as Crawly slips free of his abaya and dives into the blood-warm water.He has no need to breathe, so he swims with wide strokes without rising above the waves.

Finally, he stands up and breaks the surface. Immediately, he feels the pulse of holiness. He turns quickly and finds Aziraphale standing on the shore watching him. Crawly does not hurry back. The angel holds out his tunic when he steps out onto the sand.

“How was the rain and its new bow?” he sneers as he takes the clothing.

“Magnificent, of course,” the angel replies primly. His eyes linger on Crawly’s form as he dresses. Interesting. “I came to check on how the delivery went.”

Crawly shrugs. “They’re all settled with families.” He sinks down onto the sand and rests his elbows on his knees. “I assume the drownings went well otherwise?” he sneers.

Aziraphale looks away. “I do wish you would not be so dismissive of the Almighty’s plans.” He squats down, afraid of getting dirty. “It was still raining when I left if you must know.”

Crawly peers at him. “I thought you said middle management was there. Won’t they miss you?”

Aziraphale frowns and stares out to sea. “They had no plans for me once the rains began. If I didn’t know better, I’d think they forgot I would discorporate.”

Crawly hums, “Quite an oversight.” Privately, he considers another possibility: they wanted the angel to do just that. These were the situations that led to his Fall. He steers the conversation away. “Care to see their farms?”

Aziraphale could not seem less interested. Even so, he matches Crawly’s pace until they stand on the outskirts of the village, overlooking the fields. Farming is still new. It fascinates Crawly. He considers the fields and snaps. The angel starts.

“What did you do?” he says, suspiciously.

Crawly shrugs. “They wanted their crops blessed. It’s the least I could do after their hospitality last night.”

Aziraphale studies him through squinted eyes. “This is volcanic soil, and it’s very rich. It doesn’t need fertilizer.”

Crawly walks away from him, but calls over his shoulder, “I didn’t fertilize them, angel. I blessed them!”

He continues his pace until he’s back on the shore. Aziraphale trails him like a shadow.

“A demonic blessing is sure to injure their crops,” he argues.

Crawly shrugs. “Nah, a blessing is a blessing.”

Aziraphale steps in front of him and stares at him eye-to-eye. “Yes, but _how_ did you do that?”

Crawly shrugs and they walk along the beach in silence for an hour or two, leaving the village behind them.

“Do you have an assignment coming up?” Aziraphale asks, finally breaking the silence. He pulls himself up to sit on a volcanic rock out of the danger of the tide. A tide pool forms nearby and Crawly holds his tunic up to his knees as he wades in to investigate.

Crawly replies, “They’re very interested in ‘soul acquisition count’. As long as I meet my quota they stay out of my hair, for the most part.” 

He pauses his examination to study Aziraphale’s profile. He has a sharp nose which almost looks upturned at the tip, but only at certain angles. Crawly feels a little smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He looks down at the pool again.

“And you, then? Heaven got you running around burying the dead from the flood?” he asks, but his question is sharp.

“Oh, well,” the angel shifts uncomfortably, “I am to look in on the Israelites here and there. ‘Big things in motion’, or so I’m told.”

Crawly hums and steals another glance at the angel. “No doubt.”

“The seaside is very refreshing though,” Aziraphale continues as he squints into the sun’s reflection on the water.

“Yes, a noticeable improvement from bloated corpses.”

This must hit some mark because the angel winces. “I am only a servant. I cannot disobey.”

Crawly heaves a sigh and watches silvery minnows dart across the pool. “Did She order two of every fish onto the Ark?”

Aziraphale blinks at the sudden change of topic. “Come again?”

“You know, Her whole ‘two-by-two’ bit—in case one got eaten or something. They’d have a spare.” He leans over to inspect a hermit crab. “Did She get two of every fish onboard? How about eels?”

Aziraphale shakes his head. “I believe they were just left to the water.”

Crawly steps back out of the tide pool and sand coats his feet. “Seems a bit discriminatory toward aquatic creatures, doesn’t it?”

The angel stares with pursed lips. “I will not blasphemy against the Almighty.”

“Oh, keep your halo on,” Crawly says dismissively. Aziraphale looks ready to miracle himself away and the demon finds that he dislikes that plan. “Care for a swim?”

Aziraphale’s winces dramatically. “I’m afraid I’ll only float,” he says embarrassed.

Crawly admits fascination and stares open-mouthed. “What?”

“It’s something to do with divinity and water surface tension, I’m afraid,” the angel dithers. “I can walk on water, but can’t submerge.”

Crawly makes a dramatic face as he contemplates this. “Huh.”

“Just so,” Aziraphale stands and dusts off the back of his robes. “I confess that I best get back to it. Evil never sleeps—well, I suppose it does.”

As if to prove his point, Crawly yawns.

“Going back to Noah and his formerly-floating zoo?” Crawly asks with another jaw-cracking yawn.

Aziraphale shakes sand out the length of his robe and dusts off his hands. “Canaan, actually. Sort of a long-term project.”

Crawly watches him move and tries to convince himself that he’s not committing it to memory. He doesn’t want him to go. He can nearly admit that to himself.

“You could stay for the midday meal. We could walk back to the village—“

“I simply couldn’t,” the angel says, his voice soft.

“You could stay the night. We could talk—“

“I cannot stay, my dear boy. My side doesn’t like missed deadlines,” he says, his voice still just as warm and gentle as the sunshine. “I have enjoyed this.”

Crawly nods. “I guess the animals aren’t going to count themselves. How many times do you think you’ll have to count to two?”

Aziraphale smiles and touches Crawly’s shoulder. “For some of those species, I’d be surprised if there wasn’t more than two now—“

Crawly’s eyebrows rise in confusion. “No, angel, there were two of each beast.”

Aziraphale considers him. “Yes,” he agrees slowly, “one male and one female. Some of them mate quite prolifically.”

Crawly nods. “Encourage the unicorn, if you don’t mind. I’ve always liked them.”

The angel’s face contorts with confusion. “If it’s a mare, then we might have hope. But she’d have to already be with foal.”

Crawly stretches out on the sand and lets the waves lap at his feet. “Even better. It’ll be quicker to have two that way.”

Aziraphale looks like he wants to say something, but decides against it. Instead, he says, “I will check on the unicorn if you’d like me to.”

Crawly nods, almost happily. “You could stay. Upstairs won’t miss you for an hour or two longer.”

“I’m afraid I’ve already wasted too much time.” His eyes run along the horizon where the waves meet the shore. A seabird calls.

“I don’t think the time was wasted,” Crawly finally says, his voice soft. Aziraphale looks startled.

“I dare say not,” he answers. They look at each other. Crawly is tempted to stand and touch the angel’s cheek.

“So long then,” the angel says, his eyes roving over Crawly’s cheekbones.

“Until next time,” the demon replies, and Aziraphale disappears.


	2. c. 2086 BCE, Valley of Siddim, Jordan River Base

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author notes: The Quran states that Noah’s fourth son refused to board the Ark and tried to escape the flooding from atop a mountain instead. He drowned. 
> 
> Abram will eventually get his name changed to “Abraham” and be promised to basically father all of humanity. As for Canaan, the Israelites were called on to commit genocide on all the folks living in the land they were promised. 

**c. 2086 BCE, Valley of Siddim, Jordan River Base**

Aziraphale is expecting an assignment. Even so, it’s alarming when a sheep approaches him. It is glowing in a heavenly manner, which makes the angel look around the grassy field and check for humans.

“Principality of the Eastern Gate,” it bays.

“Er, yes,” he offers, in what he hopes is an articulate manner. Sheep make him nervous.

The sheep bleats, “King Chedorlaomer, with his allies, have attacked the river valley of Siddim. They are victorious. King Bera of Sodom has fled; the Elam are pillaging the cities.”

Aziraphale’s heart aches. He hates War and her stupid ability to make the people turn against their own inane kindness.

“Abram’s nephew Lot is among those stolen away,” the sheep says. “As we speak, Abram and 318 of his servants march on the city of Dan. Go and deliver Lot to his uncle; Chedorlaomer must die.”

“What of the city of Sodom? Who did Heaven send to help them?” Aziraphale frets.

The sheep bahs balefully. “They are an ungodly lot. See to Abram and his kin.”

The ewe gives a delicate blink then keels over dead as the holy light dissipates. Aziraphale sighs. He snaps his fingers and the sheep revives. It staggers to its feet and gives a shake. This new messaging system might save time for the archangels, but it certainly cuts into Aziraphale’s miracle allotment.

It is obvious that Aziraphale is not consulted on policy decisions. If the sheep messages weren’t proof enough, one only need to look to the Noah debacle. The man had four sons but only three made it on the Ark. Such a waste. What was that other one’s name? Yam? Or was it Kan’an? Anyway, this battle in the vale of Siddim is another one of those times when someone Upstairs would have benefitted from his on-the-ground-knowledge.

Management isn’t interested in Aziraphale’s insights, however, even with his experience as a commander and soldier. They just want results. With his next miracle, Aziraphale appears in the city of Dan. He offers his counsel to Abram, who invites him to join their household in battle. Yet, he did not come to Earth to bless wars. Instead, he sprinkles on miracles for their horses and swords, then transports himself to Sodom.

The city has always been one of questionable character. Any sin that a human could want is there. Prostitutes. Gambling tables. Liquor. Black markets. Even so, Sodom did not deserve this fate. Aziraphale stares at the state of ruin.

Soldiers have more than pillaged. Homes are tossed and their contents are broken. Fires smolder inside and out. Corpses—human and animal—litter the street. Aziraphale pulls his _simlāh_ over his nose and mouth to avoid the stink.

Those people who escaped slavery scuttle away in fear as he approaches. Aziraphale tries to cast a warm glow of heavenly help, but no one responds. He feels the sorrow and hopelessness beat at him like a storm on a windowpane. Then he feels the thrum of panic followed by hope. He follows it like a beacon. As he gets closer, however, he recognizes it for what it is: demonic power. The tinge of hope, however, means it can only be one being.

Aziraphale finds the remains of a marketplace and follows it to a stucco building. The door hangs by one hinge. Inside, baskets of colored yarn are kicked over and ingredients used for dying the yarn spilled about or trampled. Then he encounters the corpses. Someone has ravaged these women, but someone else has covered them after their deaths. He suspects he knows who did the latter.

Crawly is curled in a ball in a corner with a girl in her lap. She’s wrapped around the teenager protectively, but looks up, teary-eyed when the angel approaches.

“Help her, please,” Crawly begs.

If the aftermath of War was not terrible enough, seeing Crawly like this is shocking. Her cornea is hidden behind a wide yellow iris, but her pupils are constricted with fear. Tears track down her cheeks. Aziraphale shakes himself and kneels down to touch the girl’s face. She has no pulse. She is cold and stiff—she has been dead for some time.

“She’s gone,” he whispers, but the demon just wraps around her tighter and rocks her.

“Please, please, angel. Smite me if you must, but save her.”

Her words pierce his heart. Aziraphale kneels there before the grieving demon until pins and needles rush up his legs. He ignores the sensation. He watches Crawly instead. She is not a pretty crier. Snot runs down her face and cheeks, and her eyes are red and blotchy. Blood is smeared across her chin and mouth as if she wiped it there by accident.

“They came for them,” she whispers, her voice laden with tears. “The soldiers came for them and I couldn’t stop them.”

Crawly pulls back from the teenager’s corpse and lays her gently on the floor. She unwraps her black headscarf from around her hair and lovingly drapes it across the child’s face. Then she clutches her shoulders, offering herself some sort of hug.

“I couldn’t stop them,” she whispers.

She turns out her hands and Aziraphale can see the lines of her palms are stained with dye. Here dark with tannins, and there yellow with saffron. All across them is rusty blood. Aziraphale cups her shaking palms in his own hands and pulls them both to their feet. Crawly sways and collapses into the angel’s arms. He wraps her in his embrace and shushes her.

“You did your best,” he tries, hoping for the right words, but Crawly gives a hollow laugh.

“I fought in the Great War in Heaven and couldn’t kill anyone then either. I tried words then too. It didn’t save _anyone_ either time,” she laments, tearfully.

She staggers when Aziraphale walks them out into the street. “I should stay with my friends,” she says, brokenly.

“You need to rest,” the angel argues and with a quick miracle, they both appear back in his tent in Abram’s camp. It’s nothing like Sodom’s more durable structures, nor even the size of Abram and Sarai’s tent. Wide-striped, linen panels stretch across ropes to form a small triangle tent. Carpets overlap on the floor. He helps Crawly sit on a pile of pillows and cushions. A miracle brings him a rag and a basin of clean water. Aziraphale dips the cloth and he scrubs at her hands.

“The dye won’t come off,” she whispers, her voice weary.

“You’ve been busy?” he asks, aiming for lightness. It just sounds flat.

“Needed something to do,” she replies, and then the tears pour out again. She sags forward, curling over her knees. Aziraphale rinses the rag and then wipes the blood from her face. Gently, he wipes her nose and eyes. She blinks at him slowly through her tears.

“Why are you helping me?”

He has no good answer and he’s not sure that relying on “Heavenly love” will get him through this one. He’s suddenly aware of his heart beating.

“You should rest, my dear. You’re safe now,” he finally says.

She sniffles and wipes her sleeve across her blood-shot eyes. Then, she bows down to take his hands in hers. She sets the rag on the rug next to them and turns his palms up. Somewhere, worry begins to spread through Aziraphale. What is this demon going to do?

“My dear?” he queries, but his words drop away as Crawly presses a kiss to each of his palms, methodically. Her lips are dry and cool, as are her hands. Before he can react, however, she slides away from him. She curls into a ball in the cushions and closes her yellow eyes.

“If you smite me,” she says hoarsely, “make it quick please. I’ve already suffered enough today.”

Aziraphale shakes his head vigorously, even if she cannot see him. “I promise you sanctuary.”

He exits the tent then and sees to those still in the compound. Sarai and her handmaiden, Hagar, wave to him. He raises his hand in return before approaching them.

“Good day,” he greets.

“I did think that you had traveled with my husband,” Sarai observes. “Yet here you are.”

Aziraphale smiles uncomfortably. “Yes, well. The Lord moves in mysterious ways.”

Hagar leans toward her mistress and faux-whispers with dramatic flair, “The maids are saying there is a concubine in your tent, good sir.”

Sarai studies him. “I did not take you for one who enjoyed the female form. Forgive my ignorance.”

Aziraphale’s mouth flaps uncontrollably. His voice has deserted him. Do they believe Crawly a concubine? Do they believe he would bring home such a woman? The whole thing seems ridiculous.

Hagar giggles at his speechlessness. Sarai swats her arm. “Leave this good man alone. Surely, if such a godly man has taken a concubine it must be ordained.”

“She isn’t a concubine,” he squeaks out.

Both women stare at him incredulously. “Oh?” Sarai finally asks.

“We were friends,” his voice dies away as he tries to find some footing for his lie. “Childhood friends. I found her in Sodom.”

Hagar’s face loses some of its mirth. “She was a lost woman then.”

“No,” Aziraphale argues, attempting to preserve her character, “she worked to color textiles and yarn.”

“A dye smith,” Sarai muses. “A good trade.”

Aziraphale nods, relieved. “Everyone with her was,” he lets his voice trail away. Such stories are not for the gentle ears of such pious women.

Hagar frowns and nods, knowingly. “War is no place for the innocent.”

Sarai watches her handmaiden. “Hagar hails from Egypt in a time of war. She was put into my service by Pharaoh himself. I believe it has kept her from some horrors, but not those of her youth.”

Hagar’s eyes swim with tears, but she looks away. “I might go see to the maids.”

“And I should care for my guest,” Aziraphale excuses himself and leaves the women before Hagar must invent a task to see the maids about.

Crawly lies on one cushion and under several more. She’s dragged them over her head to shield her from the sun’s light, which is bright even defused through the linen tent. She sighs in her sleep.

Aziraphale keeps watch for the hours that she rests. As evening light softens, she stirs. Her yellow eyes open slowly and she rubs them, then staggers to her feet.

“Hello, angel,” she greets with a gravely voice.

Aziraphale offers her his waterskin as she approaches him. She drinks deeply from it. He waits until she stoppers the skin to ask her the question he’s thought about for the past hours.

“Was she your daughter?”

He’s heard of the human-angel relations, of course. The Almighty made Her feelings very well know about Host who took humans as spouses and bore children. He also knows how broken the demon looked as she held the teenager to her breast.

“Not by blood, if that’s what you’re asking,” Crawly croaks and she stares at the water skin in her hands. “But yes. Aya was a street urchin when I took her in. She was beautiful even as a child. It was only a matter of time before those men made her sell her body. I couldn’t stand for that. She called me ‘Ama’.”

Aziraphale watches the demon trace the stitching on the leather water skin. A part of him wants to ask what sort of demon helps orphans and disapproves of prostituting children. The other part of him flushes with affection.

When she next speaks, her voice breaks. “She laughed like a bird. My little bird.”

She drops the water skin and cups her hands over her face. Sobs wrench out of her and her shoulders shake. The angel steps forward and wraps her in his arms. He rocks her and rubs his hand down her back. She weeps until sleep claims her again.

Her head pillows on his strong shoulder and her torso is limp against his wide chest. Aziraphale struggles not to notice how well she fits into his arms. Instead, he focuses on how her long hair spills over his hand as he strokes her spine.

This close, he can feel her tired exhales. This close, he can see her eyelashes fluttering against her swollen, red cheeks. This close, he can smell the dye ingredients on her abaya and skin. Aziraphale tucks his nose into her ginger curls and sniffs the earthy scent of boiled roots overlaid with brine. His heart races.

The angel swallows and he lifts her into his arms. She is a slight wisp in his arms, barely substantial. He carries her back to the mound of cushions and settles her among the best ones. He lays her down and strokes her hair so that it spreads over the cushion. Then he sits at her hip and watches her sleep.

This is their routine for the coming days. Crawly wakes, tells something about her Aya, and breaks down. She sleeps. Aziraphale keeps watch. During one of her grief-stricken naps, Aziraphale miracles himself into Sodom.

The textile shop looks as it did, only the smell is worse. He carefully wraps each body in the expensive fabrics he finds. Then he banishes each body, including Aya’s, to a cave in the hills. Left with only the ruins of an attack, Aziraphale searches through the shop. Mostly, this front room is full of yarns and colored fabrics to sell. A broken loom leans in the corner with the remains a lovely tapestry on it. The angel almost takes it, when he sees the splatter of blood. Pain pulses through him and he hurries on. The backroom is nothing but giant cauldrons for boiling the cloth. Dried plants and colored fabrics hang from the ceiling. Aziraphale banishes some of these to his tent. Then he finds their dormitory.

It’s a small room filled with sleeping mats. Someone has already tossed it looking for valuables. Using his celestial senses, however, the angel seeks out Crawly’s mat. It’s on the far corner and, while infused with demonic energy, it also blossoms with love. Aziraphale runs his fingers over the mat and feels the levels of affection. Maternal love. Love of kin and friend. Love of home and hearth. His heart aches anew for Crawly. Under the mat, he finds a flute and a hair comb. The flute is crudely made from a reed. The comb looks like bone. He rubs his thumb over the scratch marks in it before pocketing both items. There is another black abaya balled up in the corner like a pillow. He finds some headscarves as well. These collected, he miracles himself back to the tent.

Crawly is awake when he arrives.

“I sent her body to a cave,” he tells her. She closes her eyes and holds her hand out to him.

“Take me there?” she whispers. He acquiesces.

The cave is blazing red in the setting sun. Each of the women from the textile shop lay inside, wrapped in their handiwork. Crawly walks, corpse by corpse, and speaks to the dead. She calls them by name. Once complete, she touches their bodies and they sink into the dirt, buried where nature will not disturb them.When she comes to Aya, however, she kneels down. She pulls back the headscarf she left over her child and touches the girl’s face. Then she leans down and kisses her forehead.

“Sleep well, my little bird,” she whispers and tucks her back into the delicate fabric. As the girl’s body sinks into the soil, Crawly wraps her arms around herself and rocks back and forth. She does not cry. She does not blink. When the dust settles and the soil looks undisturbed, she rises and exits the cave.

Aziraphale blesses it. “No one will disturb them,” he promises. Crawly isn’t listening. She hugs herself and stares into the distance. Her uncovered hair blows in the breeze. 

A choice presents itself. Heaven wouldn’t like it. Then again, Heaven would be cross to learn that Aziraphale hadn’t smited the demon the second he laid eyes on her. He makes his decision.

“Come home with me,” he says, nothing more than a whisper.

Crawly turns to face him slowly. Her face is vulnerable and raw. “What was that, angel?”

He clears his throat. “I said, come home with me.”

“That’s what I thought you said.”

Aziraphale nods and wrings his hands. “Will you?”

Crawly considers him. “Are you sure you want me?” Her words hang there. When Aziraphale doesn’t answer, she tries to change the meaning. “I mean, I’m a demon. I’d be in your house—“

Aziraphale feels every heartbeat in his chest. He reaches out slowly and takes her hand from her shoulder. “I do want you, my dear.”

Crawly freezes, her eyes wide. Aziraphale steps closer and clasps her hand in both of his.

“I think you need to grieve.” She looks away, but he squeezes her hand to focus her gaze again. “But I’d like you to stay. I want to help you grieve.” He takes a steadying breath. “I want to give you something to smile about again.”

Crawly’s fingers twitch in his grip and she steps closer to him.

“Come home with me, Crawly.” And she nods sharply.

She watches him the entire night, from the time they return to his tent. She settles into her cushions and observes him. Once he’s aware of it, Aziraphale becomes self-conscious. For something to do, he empties his pockets.

“When I went back,” he begins before holding out the flute and comb to Crawly. Her hands shake when she takes them. She tucks them to her chest and lays down among the cushions to have another grief-stricken cry. When she falls asleep, both the flute and comb are still clasped to her breast.

In the early morning, Abram, the mighty rescuing warrior, returns with his servants and his wayward nephew. Aziraphale pushes his tent flap aside to greet the future patriarch.

“Azira!” Abram greets, clasping the angel into a hug. “My wife tells me that you have got yourself betrothed!”

Aziraphale winces. “She is an old friend from childhood—“

“Yes, so was my Sarai! These are good times for one to take a wife.”

Aziraphale twists his fingers together over his belly. “Perhaps not for me—“

“You both will feast with us tonight! We celebrate the return of my nephew!”

Aziraphale cannot find a way to escape the invitation, or so he tells Crawly.

“Do you like feasts?” Crawly asks, kneeling among the cushions.

“I do so like what the humans can make. You’ve had their bread? And the mutton?” He licks his lips. Crawly chuckles—the first laugh that Aziraphale has heard from her since he found her in Sodom.

“I suppose I best clean myself up,” she observes. She stands to her full height and studies her abaya. It’s ripe with smell and Crawly frowns when she notices. “Is there a place to bathe?”

Which is how Aziraphale and she wind up by the river. It’s more a creek if Aziraphale is honest, but Hagar described it as such. The water is deep in areas and slow-moving. Crawly considers this and pulls the abaya over her head. Aziraphale looks away, his cheeks flushing. She strips with efficiency and ambles into the water.The angel looks back at the same moment that Crawly turns to face him. Her red hair spills over her shoulders and dances over the swell of her small breasts. Her nipples are rosy red. His eyes drift lower on her body, studying her navel and sharp hipbones. She, like women of the Earth, has a puff of red hair that hides her sex. Aziraphale stares. Crawly throws back her head and laughs. It’s wild and happy. It nearly makes the angel forget his embarrassment.

“Really, angel?” she laughs. “Unwashed body and greasy hair? That’s what gets you going?”

Indeed, it has some effect on him. He shifts the way he is standing to accommodate an unexpected and embarrassing complication between his legs. Crawly chuckles happily and sinks into the deeper water. She dunks her hair until it’s dark and wet. Then with miracled soap, lathers up her shoulders.

“Coming in, angel? I’ll wash your back.”

Aziraphale stammers, “No, I’m quite all right, my dear.”

And he makes the mistake of looking at her while addressing her. Her breasts bob at the surface of the water, but she’s not actively teasing him. In fact, she’s rubbing soap into her scalp, completely ignorant that he’s staring. And he is staring. His mouth is open like a fish.

This is a new development. He’s never seen the female form as sexually enticing. Beautiful, yes. Tempting, no.

Crawly dunks her hair under the water three times in a row. Bubbles scatter across the water surface. Aziraphale’s breathing speeds up. He wants to touch her wet hair. He wants to lick the water drops from her shoulders. He wants to kneel before her and kiss the skin of her belly. Like a forgotten dream, the sensation of her lips on his palms reasserts itself in his memory.

He turns away from the river, panting. “Get a hold of yourself.”

“Angel, could you throw me that tunic?” Crawly asks, splashing up out of the river.

He sputters and blushes. “Of course.”

Crawly chuckles but makes no comment. She dresses behind him and appears at his side, ready to be seen in public. She’s wearing one of the abayas he collected from the textile house, but he’s never seen the headscarf before. It’s black with tiny red flowers stitched at its hem. They walk back to their tent in silence.

“Do they think I’m your whore?” Crawly asks, unperturbed.

“At first, yes, my concubine. Now they think we’re betrothed,” he says, haltingly.

“Which do you want me to be?” Crawly asks. She’s sincere and studies his face for signs of worry. “I could be your sister?”

“That doesn’t much matter among them. Sarai and Abram are half-siblings,” Aziraphale answers with a shrug.

Crawly considers this. “Huh.”

They enter their tent as the afternoon sun burns onto the compound. Crawly kneels on the cushions and retrieves her comb. She removes her headscarf and separates her hair into three portions. She combs each section carefully. Aziraphale settles beside her and watches the smooth strokes.

“My side won’t like either,” he says and Crawly stops her combing to look at him. “Wife or concubine. They won’t like either. They’ll destroy you if they find us together.”

Crawly stares at him then lets the comb drop into her lap. Her voice is small when she answers, “If I were going to die, I’d go happier as your spouse.” The admission must cost her something because she looks away and studies the roof of the tent.

Aziraphale reaches over carefully and takes the comb from her lax fingers. Then he shuffles closer and begins to comb the section of hair that she abandoned.

“I’m not keen on dying,” Crawly admits as he brushes through her hair.

“I’d rather you were safe,” Aziraphale argues, but his voice is gentle. “You are dear to me.”

She gives a watery chuckle. “You know I love you, right?” she asks, and Aziraphale jolts. The comb freezes.

“Too much, right?” she laughs again. “I can go. It’s not the sort of thing you could ever—“

“I didn’t know,” he interrupts and she finally meets his eye. “I suspected. But I didn’t know for sure.”

She wipes her eyes with her fingertips. “You do want me, right?”

He begins to answer her when a sheep bleats outside the tent flap. Aziraphale leaps to his feet. “Hide,” he orders.

He feels the pulse of her magic and she shifts into a tiny garter snake. She slithers beneath cushions. The angel opens the tent flap to a glowing sheep.

“Principality of the Eastern Gate,” it bleats.

“Ugh, indeed,” he replies. He stations himself in the doorway to block its view inside—just in case. After all, sheep still make him nervous, even if they are delicious.

The sheep cries, “Deliver tidings of great joy, Abram will be the father of many. Indeed, Hagar carries his son.”

Then the sheep falls dead. Aziraphale considers this and snaps. The sheep blinks drunkenly and stumbles to its feet. It wanders off to return to its flock. The angel turns and lets the tent flap fall shut behind him.

“Did you hear that?” he asks. A little snake slithers up onto a cushion and flicks her tongue at him. “Sarai’s handmaiden is with child.”

“Not much of a maiden anymore is she?” Crawly hisses. Her sibilants stretch out and extend her words. She shifts and sits coquettishly on the same cushion. One bare leg drapes from beneath her abaya. Aziraphale immediately flushes and looks away. Crawly ducks her head and smiles to herself.

“You do like this form,” she observes.

Aziraphale fidgets. “It’s just you, I think. I like you.”

She stares at him, eyes blown yellow in surprise. He clears his throat and looks away.

“So sheep?” she asks, amusedly. “That’s new.”

“Something about miracle reservation,” Aziraphale mutters and snaps until his tunic and robe are clean. “The sheep don’t survive it though.”

Crawly hums. “Shame. It’s clever if a little dramatic.”

Aziraphale’s eyes wiggle in an assortment of micro-expressions. “Just so.”He pats his pockets and straightens up. “Shall we go to the feast?”

“Angel,” Crawly stops him, eyes hesitant, “am I going as your concubine or—“

“—My betrothed.” The answer is so abrupt and decisive they both stare.

“Right,” Crawly replies. “But not your sister first. That’s just nasty.”

The women in the compound make over Crawly as Aziraphale’s future wife. They promise feasts and celebrations. Abram asks about burning an offering and Aziraphale nearly chokes on his wine.

“Ugh, well, that’s not necessary—“ he can think of no fair excuse, but the reality of it is more terrifying. What would the Almighty do if Her face turned to see one of Her Host entering matrimony with a demon? Sweat beads on his temples. He mops at his forehead with a handkerchief.

The night passes quickly, but the worries remain.

In their tent later that night, Crawly giggles drunkenly. “They think it’s quite improper that I live with you without a chaperon.” She yanks her headscarf off and spins in a circle. The scarf sails around with her like a kite. “I’m seen as a concubine to all of them.”

Aziraphale tries to make some sort of reaction but finds that words fail him. He fidgets. His fingers knot into one another across his belly.

“My dear,” he begins, but Crawly slips on one of the carpets and tumbles into the cushions. She laughs and rolls over to press her cheek to the pillow.

“Yes, angel?” she giggles.

“Abram wants to burn a sacrifice—“

Just then Crawly’s flute floats into the air and Crawly snaps. The alcohol burns from her system and she jumps between Aziraphale and the flute.

“HAIL SATAN!” a voice rasps from the flute. “CRAWLY, ARE YOU THERE?”

“Yep, right here actually, hi!” she trills, aiming for levity and just looking terrified.

“ABOUT BLOODY TIME. NEXT ASSIGNMENT FOR YOU. TRANSMITTING NOW.”

The scent of brimstone accomplishes the line of smoke that drifts from the flute and directly up Crawly’s nose. She’s paralyzed, absorbing the information. Aziraphale frets and nearly pushes her away from it. He could break the flute. Before he can decide on a course of action, the smoke drifts away.

“GET TO IT, YOU DAMN SNAKE.”

“Righto,” she replies, her voice saddened. “Crawly out.”

“WHATEVER.”

The flute falls, inert, to the floor. Aziraphale studies the line of Crawly’s shoulders. Her head falls forward and her hair curtains her face.

“I have to go,” she says, her voice quiet.

“Stay tonight,” Aziraphale says, but it comes out as a plea. “Go in the morning.”

Crawly does not move. Aziraphale steps forward and cups her bony shoulder in his hand. He turns her around slowly and wraps her in his arms. She tucks into his chest and hides her face in his neck. She trembles.

When she pulls away, a fake smile plasters across her face. “Playing house has been fun, angel.”

He begins to cut her off. He needs to tell her that her grief was no play toy and his kindness was real. She stops him with the press of her fingertips to his mouth.

“Hell waits for no demon and I don’t want to be flayed.” She presses a kiss to his mouth. He does not move, too stunned to react. She brushes her fingers across his lips again and pulls away from his embrace.

“I’ve gotta go to the Americas, if you can believe it,” she rubs her hands together nervously. “Some soul there that must be tempted.”

Aziraphale feels something slipping away from him. He takes her hand and tugs her to him. She comes willingly and watches him with wide eyes. He palms the back of her head and kisses her deeply. Her lips part and he slips his tongue into her mouth. Crawly sighs and wraps her arms around his neck.

When they part, Aziraphale speaks against her mouth, “Stay.”

She kisses him again and nods. She tugs him toward the cushions and sinks down among the pillows. Aziraphale settles and pulls her into his lap. He wraps her in his arms and peppers her face with kisses. The angel combs his fingers through the hair at her temples and laughs when her eyes drift shut in pleasure at this touch. Crawly runs her hands over his shoulders and chest, almost as if she cannot believe she has the right to touch. She pushes aside his collar and rubs her thumb on the skin of his throat.

Beyond the fabric wall of their tent, a man laughs and another one begins a drinking song.

“Didja see?” one slurs. “That sheep there… ‘sglowing!”

Aziraphale wrenches away from Crawly and leaps to his feet. He throws open the tent flap and stares into the eye of another glowing sheep.

“Principality of the Eastern Gate,” it baas.

“Yes,” he says, straightening his robe. Damn sheep.

The sheep bleats, “You have yet to deliver the news to Abram, father of many nations. He does not know that Hagar is with child.”

Aziraphale nods woodenly. He’d forgotten to do his job. “I was waiting for the proper time—“

The sheep shakes its head and continues, “Three archangels will visit Abram in the future days for the punishment of the sinful towns of Sodom and Gomorra. Be ready for this visit, Principality!”

Unsurprisingly, the sheep dies. Behind Aziraphale, Crawly snaps. The sheep lurches to its feet and stares at them vexedly. It meanders off, stopping for a drink from the trough before returning to the flock.

“I think I need to go,” Crawly says. She has wrapped her hair in a scarf again and has sandals on her feet. “Too many heavenly sheep around here. It’s giving me hives.”

Aziraphale takes her hand in his. He wants to beg her to stay, but they both know that is foolish. He raises her hand to his lips and kisses the back of her hand.

“Travel safely, my dear.”

She turns her hand and cups his chin. “Take care, angel.”

Then she snaps and she is gone.


	3. c. 2066 BCE, Marajó Island, Brazil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another quick history lesson: "eromenos" is the term for the young male lover in ancient Greece's Pederasty--or the romantic and sexual love between a young boy (like 13-20 years old) and a man ("erastes"). We'd just call it "rape" these days. I highly doubt that such relationships would be actually included in Abraham's compound, but for my lovely story, they are.
> 
> Also, heads up, this is written by an atheist (who grew up Evangelical). Any blasphemy wasn't mean to offend individuals but was totally meant in the way it was written. So. Just like Neil and Terry wanted it, basically. :)

**c. 2066 BCE, Marajó Island, Brazil**

Unlike his deity mother, Satan is not omniscient. This gives Crawly some room to take liberties with his temptation reporting. He claims all sorts of things that humans created on their own. Sodom was a good example. He showed up at a tavern and saw how much sinning was going on. Immediately, he’d known that it was the perfect guise for living instead of tempting and settled down. His reports claimed his introduction of a multitude of sins. In reality, he learned to dye yarn and raised his daughter. It showed how out of touch Hell was, really, that they fell for it at all. Of course, it also means that it takes Hell some time to process his documentation.

Crawly is stationed in the Amazon River Basin at Hell’s direct orders when Beelzebub digs out of the soil.

“My lord!” he exclaims with a sputter. He bows low but never takes his eyes off them. Demons stabbing one another in the back is good for their morale.

Beelzebub gives him a dismissive glance and then studies the rainforest canopy above them. “The Demon Crawly, you’re really in Hell’s bad books now,” they buzz and hand over a scroll. “In honor of your work with the destruction of the Cities of the Plain in Canaan, a commendation.” They’re bored as they announce this. “It comes with a six percent increase of miracle allotment and a commemorative beer cozy.”

They hand these over in the same dismissive manner as the scroll. “Also, your expense report for the quarter is late.” And with this, they sink back into the dirt and below to Hell.

Crawly stares at the freshly turned soil where they sunk down, completely at a loss. This was like the time he got the commendation for the apple tree business. He hadn’t been looking to make a name for himself, but he had. Now, with this, he’d be a target for so many of Hell’s worst. He was a nobody and he liked it that way. His work in the past years with the Marajoara clans was not going to get him noticed, which was a good thing in light of this new award. He’d made his damned souls quotas without lifting a finger—humans damned themselves just fine without temptation.

But Crawly was also tempted by curiosity. What had happened in those cities after he departed? Was Aziraphale still there? How does one destroy four entire locations? With a focused miracle, he disappeared from South America and reappeared in the land west of the Jordan River. He found himself on a gradual incline overlooking what should have been the outskirts of Sodom. He knew this area well. It was the way to the creek from the textile shop.

There was nothing in front of him. He swiveled his head slowly, taking in the long expanse of burnt soil. There should be stucco buildings and hard-packed soil streets. Animals with carts should roll through and travelers should call for directions. Crawly takes a hesitant step, then begins to jog. His bare feet slip and slide down the hill. He races to the center of the plain. As his feet pound the ground, he kicks up the smell of brimstone. Ashes coat his feet. He stops, breathing hard, and turns a slow circle. All of it is gone.

Suddenly, he begins to retch. He collapses to his knees and braces his palms in the ashes. He vomits until nothing is left but bile. He spits, then stumbles to his feet. He thinks about Aziraphale and finds his holy power like a beacon. He could miracle himself there, but he feels too queasy. Instead, he walks. Grass slaps at his legs and rocks poke his soles. He keeps walking.

Aziraphale is in the distance somewhere waiting for him. How many months has he dreamt of being wrapped in those strong arms? In these past years, he has lingered on the memory of the angel’s lips. He longs to relearn their taste and feel. They’ve been long years apart. He can wait no longer. Ignoring his stomach, he snaps and appears inside the angel’s tent.

It looks much as it did those years ago. The cushions and rugs are the same, but there are now cuneiform tablets piled in one corner. Aziraphale’s scent lingers in the fabrics, but he himself is absent. It’s comforting. Even so, Crawly’s stomach rebels and he hurls himself out of the tent flap to be sick. Several women in the area stop their gossip and study him.

“Azira!” one yells, teasingly, “Your manservant is ill!”

Another woman studies Crawly and comments snidely, “I believe that one might be one of his _eromenos_.” Crawly wants to snap back, but he gags instead.

“Crawly?” Aziraphale asks, hovering over him. He grabs the demon under the arms and hauls him up. He waves his hand across his stomach and nausea subsides. “Let’s get you inside.”

The angel braces him as they enter and handles him gently as he sets him on a cushion. “Why are you here?” he asks as he moves away. He is brisk. Crawly reaches for the angel, but he’s already out of arm's length.

“I went to Sodom,” Crawly says, his voice raw. “I didn’t know.”

Aziraphale stands before him and fidgets. “I highly doubt that. I’ve been told that you received some sort of award for your work in the evils of those cities.”

“What? Angel? No, I’ve been in the Amazon—“

“Well, you were in Sodom before then. Who knows what wiles you’d have sown then. And then you rushed off before you even saw the outcome of your deeds! And, if that wasn’t cowardly enough, you come back here to play me like some pantomime!” He turns in profile, still twisting his fingers into one another.

Crawly’s muscles are weak from the last hour. He feels drained. “You think I’d trick you?” he asks quietly.

“You’re a demon. Who is to say what underhanded thing you’d do.”

“Angel,” he says, his voice cracking. This is nothing like he expected their reunion to be. “I didn’t hurt those people—“

“You did! You led thousands of lives to their destruction through their vices—“

“They did that on their own! Humanity makes their own fate—“

“And then you deny your involvement? And you had me so _deceived_ —so tempted! What with your form and your kisses!” he gesticulates wildly. Crawly stares.

“I never tempted you,” he argues, but his voice is small.

“Didn’t you? At the river? Right here in my home?” Aziraphale spins to face him and his expression contorts. His eyes are bright with a sheen of tears, but they beg Crawly to make him believe that he’s misunderstood.

With shaking legs, Crawly draws himself up. “Angel, I would never tempt you. I’d never lie to you.” He steps forward, over the pile of cushions. “I kissed you because I love you. And I’ve wanted to kiss you for every moment I’ve been gone.”

Aziraphale holds his gaze, but his eyes shutter. “Demons cannot love.”

This actually surprised Crawly. He has nothing intelligent to say, and instead blurts out, “What?’

“Gabriel told me that the girl you kidnapped to raise in your din of iniquity was just a slave. You could not have loved her because you’re unable.”

It takes a few seconds for the words to connect to Aya’s beloved face. Then, Crawly is lit with fury. He strides across the room and shoves Aziraphale against the center pole of the tent. It rocks with the force.

“How dare you,” he snarls. “You will never speak so cruelly about my child again. You think I can’t love, then fuck off.”

He shoves the angel and staggers backward like he’s on the verge of collapse. In fact, he might be. His heart hammers in his chest while it seems to bleed and crack. Aziraphale watches him, still leaned against the center pole. If anything, this violence seems to cement some belief about the demon for him.

Crawly’s miracles already feel depleted, but he cannot stand to be there any longer. He snaps and travels into the hills to the hidden space where his Aya rests. It’s not a deep cave, but it’s out of the wind and weather. He steps across the glamor that hides the entrance and his feet sink into the wet earth. He shakes out his wings and the black feathers brush across the mud with a swish as he walks. Crawly passes his friends’ graves, offering them solemn nods. He’s so tired.

He comes to the back and kneels in the soil. His wings shift, first rising, then sinking down with exhaustion. He’s still dressed in the loose tunic and loincloth of the Marajoara tribe. No wonder the woman thought he was Aziraphale’s young lover, or _eromenos._ He’s practically naked by the Israelites’ standards. It’s no matter. Crawly lays down on the soft soil next to Aya’s grave and tucks his wings around him like a blanket. He lets his eyes close and, in hopes of ignoring his broken heart, he sleeps.


	4. c. 2066 BCE, Valley of Siddim, Jordan River Base

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG this was supposed to post at the same time as the previous chapter. Here it is!!!

**c. 2066 BCE, Valley of Siddim, Jordan River Base**

The Almighty did not make Aziraphale a decisive creature. That said, he stands by his convictions once they are made. That is something that Gabriel forgot when he visited two years ago. Sandalphon and he arrived to negotiate the destruction of the Cities of the Plains.

“It’s for the best,” Gabriel claimed. Abraham stared and Sarah cried.

“Really, it is,” Sandalphon agreed.

“But if there were some good people there,” Abraham begged, “would the Lord still destroy them?”

Gabriel shrugged, “Probably not. She’s all for redemption stories. I should tell you though, Sandalphon is rearing to smite, if you know what I mean! It’ll be hard to hold this one back!”

Sandalphon mimed tugging on a horse’s reins but laughed it off with a slimy smirk.

“Fifty people—if there were fifty good people? Would the Lord forgive them?” Abraham begged.

Sandalphon looked constipated. “That’s a really big number. I doubt you could find that many—“

“Thirty then?” Aziraphale suggested and Gabriel glared at him.

Abraham latched onto this though. “Thirty is a good number! If there were thirty? Could the children be spared? The innocents?”

Gabriel rolled his eyes. “No child born by Eve’s curse is without sin, Abraham.” He sighed in a put upon manner. “But sure. If there are thirty good people—“

“Ten?” Sarah cried and clutched her husband’s hands. “Save them for ten. If there were ten good people?”

Sandalphon and Gabriel exchanged a look. Aziraphale cleared his throat.

“There was a demon in Sodom,” he began and the other two angels looked surprised at him.

“You smote a demon?” Sandalphon asked in sadistic delight.

“I drove her away, yes. She learned to love in that city—she raised a child in that city—“

“Groomed her for Hell, I think you mean,” Gabriel argued. “No demon has the capacity for love.”

Aziraphale wanted to argue. He’d seen Crawly’s grief. He’d seen love in the demon’s eyes when she confessed her feelings for him.

“Demons are quite versed in lust, I believe,” Sandalphon said, sagely. “No doubt even a child could be tempted to see evil as good.”

Aziraphale considered this. Crawly naked by the riverside or rolling drunkenly on the cushions in his tent. Yes, perhaps that’s all it was. His heart clenched. He’d been played a fool.

The negotiation was set and Gabriel and Sandalphon went to search for ten good people in the cities. Aziraphale wiped his identity from Abraham and Sarah’s memories, then returned to his tent. There, he dug under the pile of pillows and retrieved a headscarf. Crawly left it there long months ago. He twisted it around his fist and then, without a second thought, banished it into the ether. He only sobbed for an hour, then told himself to buck up.

“I’ve been played. I won’t be made a fool of again,” he swore to himself.

That night, fire and brimstone rained down and the four cities lay in ruin. Uriel appeared to Aziraphale on the hill as he watched Sodom burn.

“Gabriel asked me to pass on a message,” she said, carefully enunciating each word. “They did not bother to look for ten men. It was clear that they were all bad. They asked that you not tell Abraham.”

Cold stones fell into his stomach. “Thank you for passing it along,” he replied.

And so the years passed. Abraham’s line grew by two sons. Ishmael, his son by Hagar, and Isaac, his son by Sarah. With each birth, Aziraphale missed Crawly. He tries to hide this growing affection, but it sometimes steals up and surprises him. He hides his feelings by taking lovers. They’re young and bubble with vitality. They see him as an instructor in the carnal delights. These men will not seek out prostitutes, but long for sensual expression. He teaches them to hold and touch. Sometimes, if they’re lean and lithe enough, he pretends they are Crawly. But the men are never graceful or pale or bony enough to surpass his image in the angel’s mind. He longs. Then he beats himself up for such feelings.

Nearly five years pass before Crawly reappears. He’s barely dressed according to the land’s customs. Freckles dot his cheekbones, forearms, and shoulders. His feet are dusted with ashes. It’s endearing, which only makes Aziraphale lash out. He directs all of his hatred, anger, and fear that festered inside him at the demon. Crawly does not stay. Not that Aziraphale should blame him.

Yet, the moment that Crawly disappears from his tent, the angel’s heart breaks. He reaches out, looking for the demon’s power, and isn’t surprised to find it dimmed by the glamor over Aya’s cave. He picks up his cloak, his water skin, and his staff. He slides on his sandals. He begins to walk. It’s a three-hour hike to the hills. The sun is low on the horizon when he crests the last incline.

“Crawly?” he calls.

There is no answer.

“I’m sorry, my dear. Please come out and speak to me?”

Again, the demon does not respond. Aziraphale steps over the glamor and into the cave. He gasps. Crawly lays in the mud and guano with his dark wings spread over him and Aya’s grave. He looks like a hen huddling over her little hatchlings. Aziraphale braces his hand on the stone wall and struggles to catch his breath. Tears constrict his breathing.

This is not the action of an unloving creature. This is the grief of a mother who has lost her child, then been cast out by those who should help her past her sadness. He pushes off the rock and wipes his eyes. He squats at Crawly’s side and strokes his fingers through the demon’s feathers.

“Come now, my dearest,” he whispers and gently shakes him.

Crawly blinks sleepily. Yellow eyes peer up at him through dark feathers. “Angel?”

“You cannot stay here, my dear.”

Crawly sits up and draws his wings into the dimension where they’re usually hidden. “Where would you have me go? Back to the Amazon?”

Aziraphale rocks back onto his heels. “This place is too watched. Everything that Abraham’s kin do is part of the Great Plan.”

Crawly rubs his palms down his face. “I’m tapped out. I can’t miracle myself anywhere.”

There’s a choice here. After all, Aziraphale walked here, so he has power stored up. He would defy Heaven with such a choice. He’s indecisive. Either action will have lifelong consequences.

Crawly shrugs. “I could stay here and rest up. I could sleep the years away if I had to.”

Really though, is there a choice? he wonders.

“We could go away,” the angel says suddenly.

Crawly’s eyes widen. Aziraphale plows on.

“Somewhere they’re not watching as closely. We could stay, together, for a while,” he stutters. Crawly’s mouth hangs open slightly.

“Angel, are you asking me to run away with you?” the demon whispers. It’s like deja vu from the riverside some years before.

Aziraphale twists and fidgets. “I suppose I am.”

Crawly stands and offers his hand to Aziraphale. The angel is slow to take it, but when he does, Crawly pulls him to his feet.

“Then I suppose I’m accepting.”

They stand there in the growing shadows with clasped hands.

“Then we have an accord,” Aziraphale whispers.

Crawly surges forward and seals these words with a kiss. His mouth seers like a branding iron. It animates the angel. He grabs Crawly by his social-inappropriate tunic and tugs him closer. Their kiss deepens as the demon wraps his arms around Aziraphale’s waist. His hold is tight as if he’s afraid that the angel will change his mind. They’re breathless when they pause. Crawly trembles.

“Do you mean it?” he whispers, uncertain.

Aziraphale kisses him tenderly. “I was thinking that Crete might be nice this time of year?”


	5. c. 2066 BCE, North of Damascus/Knossos, Crete

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did too much research again. Some things you might be interested to know:
> 
> \- Knossos, Crete is insane. Those people had flushing toilets.  
> \- Archeologists are nutjobs--awesome supergeeks, but also nutjobs. There is a team who rebuilt a Minoan house from mudbricks for a research project. Without this, my chapter would have been three pages shorter. You're welcome.  
> \- I've increased the rating on this bad boy. Enjoy some spontaneous smut. You can blame Outlander, which I've just started watching. So many boobs... not a single bit of titillating man skin. Stupid patriarchy.

**c. 2066 BCE, North of Damascus**

Aziraphale has no intention of leaving that evening.

“My dear, I simply cannot pack up my entire life in a single hour!” he snipes.

Crawly rolls his eyes and drops onto the pile of floor cushions. “It would take one miracle—“

“Absolutely not! Even the slightest uneven packaging and these could crack during our travels,” Aziraphale argues, lifting a small pile of clay tablets, laying them with fabric, and then binding them together with twine.

Crawly throws himself backward in a sprawl across the pillows. He’s still emotionally raw from Aziraphale’s harsh words upon their reunion. Added in with his visit to Aya’s resting place, his eyes are gritty with tears and the need to sleep. Just lying down makes them heavy. Aziraphale isn’t moving in any hurry either, so watching him pack (or fail to pack and instead reread) his clay tablets is sedating. He naps.

Hours later, the moon shines brightly into the tent and Crawly blinks awake. Aziraphale has packed a few more tablets, but is now, instead, on his knees in prayer.

“—when I heard of the earthquake in Aleppo I worried. You have such a grand plan for Abraham and his line. They have blessings upon blessings. But what of the rest of the world? I could go out into the world and help!”

Crawly shifts and braces a palm on the floor. He yawns and prepares to sit up. Aziraphale continues to pray.

“And, of course, You know the other reason. Crawly. He may be a demon, but I love him.”

Crawly squeaks and loses his balance. He faceplants into the cushions. What is he doing? He’s going to call the Lord’s attention on them and smite him! He makes a sound of alarm, but it’s smothered in the pillow. Then, from above and all around, like molecules, She is there. She pulls flame from a candle and it dances like a tiny doll on the desk before Aziraphale.

**MY LITTLE ANGEL. YOU HAVE BEEN TOLD THAT DEMONS CANNOT LOVE.**

She sounds matter-of-fact, which She always did until Crawly-that-was-once-someone-else asked too many questions and pissed her off. Her voice makes his gut clench and the hair on his neck and arms rise into gooseflesh and his toes curl and his heart hammer and his eyes water. She makes him try to return to Her curse for him—a serpent on his belly. His mouth tastes of dust. His skin shifts with rolls of scale and his nails sharpen into talons while his arms and legs try to melt back into his tail. Aziraphale bows lower as he continues his prayer.

“And You and I know that is not the case. He loves deeply. For this place. For its people. For his daughter. For me.”

**YOU WOULD DEFY MY SERVICE FOR HIS LOVE?**

Aziraphale’s head bows lower and his shoulders curl in. “My love for him would be a defiance, My Lord?”

Crawly hisses out a wail of alarm. His curse keeps him uncoordinated. He cannot even seem to work out how to sit up. Meanwhile, the Almighty is silent. The angel carries on.

“I believe that You are a being of love. You formed me to guard and protect your precious creation and its humans. I want to do so. You made me to love deeply too—a love that mirrors his. And I see love when he moves, when he smiles, when he _wakes_.”

Well, shit. Aziraphale knows he is awake. He tries to uncover his eyes, but terror keeps him frozen.

“We could go together into the world. We could care for the people.” The Almighty does not listen to this. Instead, Her flamed face turns to the pile of cushions. Crawly feels Her heated gaze burn into him.

~~**_GADREEL_**~~.

She says his name-that-was and it is a forceful poison. Crawly curls, coil-like, in pain. That name is redacted. It’s now a curse, much like his serpent curse, that burns into his essence. He does not remember what he was called then. He remembers the spin of starlight and the scratch of drafting plans and the hum of calculations. Star-making. He still remembers that. He just doesn’t know who he was when he did it. When someone addresses him by the name-that-was, he remembers it. He curses it. It burns like acid in his throat and Crawly scrambles up to spit blood. He’s bitten his tongue. Scales flush over his face and his hands flash in and out of existence. Blood dribbles down his chin.

“Mother,” he says, aiming for emotionless, but sounds more broken instead.

**CRAWLY DOESN’T SUIT YOU.**

“No, it’s a bit too… squirming-at-your-feet-ish. But I suppose that’s what I do in Your presence now, isn’t it, Mother?” he asks, his voice cracking. Tears pour from his eyes. Aziraphale gives a pained noise.

The Almighty makes a low, annoyed grunt. Her form dances in the tiny flame.

**AZIRAPHALE, GUARDIAN OF THE EASTERN GATE, WISHES TO RUN AWAY WITH YOU. HE WANTS MY BLESSING.**

Aziraphale looks mortified. He glances over then averts his eyes in a properly pious manner when he sees Crawly looking back.

“I’d rather like that since I’ve been in love with him for years and I’m hoping to spend my life with him,” the demon says. Aziraphale looks back quickly. Crawly smiles, holding his beloved’s gaze.

**YOU COULD RISE. YOU’VE DONE GOOD. YOU CAN LOVE.**

This turns Crawly’s stomach in a new way. “Rise?” he asks. His mouth tastes like dust and copper.

**RETURN TO MY HOST,** ~~**GADREEL** ~~ **.**

Crawly yelps and falls back to the floor anew. Even as he writhes, he must admit rising holds no interest for him whatsoever. Will admitting this result in his destruction? He does not want to subject Aziraphale to that. Blood bubbles out of his mouth again and coats his lips. He struggles to find breath through the pain to speak.

“No, my Almighty Lord,” Aziraphale begs on his behalf. “Do not force that choice on him.”

The flame doll turns sharply and focuses on the angel.

**YOU WILL MAKE DEMANDS AND REQUESTS OF ME, AZIRAPHALE? SHALL YOU FALL THEN?**

Aziraphale gives a piercing cry and Crawly lunges across the tent to wrap the angel in his arms.

“No!” Crawly screams as he moves. His wings are out without conscious thought and wrapped around his beloved protectively. Aziraphale’s head is tucked under his chin and he trembles in Crawly’s grasp.

“I will go,” Crawly says, his voice desperate and wretched.Blood drips from his mouth as he speaks. “I will leave him and never go near him again—don’t let him fall! He’s an angel. I beg you. Please.”

He touches Aziraphale’s back and hair softly, trying to memorize the sight of his beloved. Then, Crawly releases him and turns for the tent flap. “Stay, Aziraphale, I would never ask you to…“

He’s terrified. That’s the long and short of it. Aziraphale has no place in Hell and Crawly could not protect him there. This, leaving and abandoning any hopes of his personal happiness, is the only way to ensure the angel is safe.

“No, this isn’t fair. It’s _love_ , how is love wrong?” Aziraphale sobs. The flame considers this and She addresses Crawly.

~~**GADREEL** ~~ **, WHAT PRICE WILL YOU PAY?**

Crawly grabs his middle and bites his tongue again with his old name. Scales rush over his cheeks and tears leech from his eyes. He glances over to see Aziraphale, whose eyes are huge.

“I would do anything,” the demon breathes, trying to ignore the groan of pain that wants to escape him.

**VERY WELL. TAKE ABRAHAM’S INFANT SON, ISAAC, TO THE MOUNTAIN TOP. BUILD AN ALTAR.**

“What?” Crawly begins, his wings held high in alarm.

**SACRIFICE ISAAC TO ME AND—**

“No,” Aziraphale gasps while Crawly dramatically shakes his head no.

**—I WILL GIVE YOU FORTY DAYS AND NIGHTS TOGETHER.**

“You want me to kill a _baby_ and then only give us a month of peace?” Crawly rages. His feathers bristle. “You test them and You test them and You test them again! Now You want me to test them anew with the death of a _child_?”

Aziraphale’s hands shake as he reaches out his hands pleadingly to the flame. “My Lord, by Your Grace, please, not Isaac! His parents prayed for him for years—“

**THE INFANT IS MY GIFT TO THOSE FAITHFUL TO ME. I CAN GIVE AND I CAN TAKE.**

“I won’t. I can’t, angel, not even for you,” Crawly says, nearly begging.

Aziraphale, his face pale, holds up his hand, stopping Crawly. “Peace, my dear.” Then he faces the flame, “For that, My Lord, we will have four centuries together.”

Crawly’s mouth falls open. “What?” he asks as a shriek.

**TWO YEARS.**

“Two hundred.”

**TWENTY.**

“Sixty and no human sacrifice,” the angel bargains. His voice trembles.

**YOU WOULD NOT WORSHIP ME AS I REQUIRE, LITTLE ANGEL?**

Crawly is the original tempter. He swallows his terror and tries his silver tongue. “Will the four cities that burned not be enough of a sacrifice for you? Or those who drowned in the Flood?”

**THEIR PUNISHMENT WAS NO OFFERING.**

Crawly swallows. “There were beasts in those cities and on those farms. There were children—all of them innocent.”

The flame considers this.

“I would spend all my days at his side,” Aziraphale whispers, his eyes wet and locked on Crawly’s.

His heart pounds in Crawly’s chest at an erratic speed. “And I at his.”

The flame flickers just a moment.

**FOR THE SACRIFICES IN THESE TIMES, I GRANT YOU SIXTEEN YEARS OF WEDLOCK.**

Crawly looks from the angel to the flame quickly. “And then what?”

**YOUR DUTIES RESUME.**

“If we were willing to do our jobs, could we have more time?” Crawly asks, hopefully.

The flame flares hot blue then settles back into its yellow flicker.

**SIXTEEN YEARS,** ~~**GADREEL** ~~ **.**

And the flame vanishes as the demon writhes in fresh pain. The tent is dark without this light. Crawly’s wings shake and his knees are weak. Aziraphale stumbles to his feet and runs to him. Crawly collapses into his arms. They hold onto one another, touching each other’s cheeks and hair.

“My darling, my dearest darling,” Aziraphale whispers and presses a kiss to Crawly’s forehead. He wipes blood from Crawly’s chin.

“That was—“

“Foolish, yes, I recognize that now.” Aziraphale strokes his hand down Crawly’s neck. “Yet, we have sixteen years uninterrupted now.”

Crawly studies Aziraphale’s trusting gaze. “She never promised that.”

Aziraphale considers this and then frowns. “I just assumed…”

Crawly touches his fingertips to the angel’s frown. “We’ll sort it out when we come to it?”

Aziraphale nods. “I need to finish packing.” He helps Crawly sit back on the cushions, but his hands stray back to the demon’s neck. “Your scales,” he says reverently as his fingers touch them.

“That name. Hurt, ya know?” Crawly finally admits, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

Aziraphale’s touches stall, but his fingertips still cover the patches of black scales. “I never knew you by that name.”

“Best that you didn’t,” Crawly admits, ashamed. He tries to look away. “I was a right ponce.”

Aziraphale hums thoughtfully and he stands. He brings Crawly a glass of water. “Rinse out your mouth.” Crawly nods, sharply as does as he is told. The water is cool and sweet. It prickles on the cuts in his mouth, but it clears the coppery taste of blood. “I think we should rename you,” the angel says finally. His voice is soft and laced with love. He settles before Crawly on the pillows.

“What were you thinking?”

Aziraphale touches the scales on his neck once more. “I’m sure we’ll come up with something while we travel.”

Crawly begins to nod, but stills. “Angel, I’d love to walk Creation with you. Sixteen years though, that’s—“

“—not enough, yes. I know.”

“It’s just a minute, really, for us. I won’t waste a second. I want to belong to you, angel. I want to live.” His voice is reedy and plaintive. He blushes when he hears how it sounds.

Aziraphale rubs his thumb against the grain of Crawly’s scales. It makes him shiver.“Then,” he says, low and decisive, “I will take my bridegroom to our new home in the morning.”

Crawly stares, his eyes dilated. “And tonight?”

Aziraphale’s hand slides over the skin and scales at Crawly’s neck and shoulder. His fingers drift across the bone of his wing and tease the feathers there.

“Tonight is my wedding night,” the angel says. His eyes hood and his voice husks. “I will take my husband to our marriage bed.”

Crawly’s breathing speeds up as Aziraphale slots his fingers in between black feathers. “Will you?” he asks, needy. “Take me as your own?”

Aziraphale plucks at the strange tunic and loincloth that Crawly magicked himself to the Jordan River Valley in. He tugs at them, unclear how to best remove them. Crawly’s hands shake too much to help. Aziraphale snaps. It resonates through the tent like a gunshot. When its echoes die away, Crawly shivers in the night air. He scoots backward and spreads his form out across the cushions. His wings and hair frame him.

“I want to be yours, Aziraphale,” he whispers as he watches the angel drink in his long, lean body with his eyes. Static electricity crackles around him.

“You are,” he says, but it’s the hungry voice of a predator.

He yanks off his robe and tosses it aside. His belt follows. He climbs over Crawly in his loose tunic. The rough fabric rubs on Crawly’s bare stomach and thighs. Crawly grabs Aziraphale roughly by the back of the head and drags him down into an open-mouthed kiss. It’s desperate and messy. Crawly’s free hand grabs the fabric near Aziraphale’s hip and pulls it upward. It slides up his light skin, crackling as sparks light up across the robe.Aziraphale breaks their kiss and settles his knees on each side of Crawly’s hips. Balanced there, he yanks the tunic over his head and drops it to the side. Naked, they resume their trading of kisses. Crawly touches Aziraphale’s bare shoulders with a mixture of need and hesitation. The threat of his angel falling still hangs in the air. Aziraphale seems to have forgotten this and surges forward, kissing and sucking at Crawly’s neck. His fingers trace the shape of his feathers.

“My darling, my bridegroom,” he praises as he works his way down Crawly’s throat and chest. His hands cradle Crawly’s hips as he rearranges them for him to kneel between. “I have dreamed of this for years.”

He kisses down Crawly’s stomach and traces patterns in his chest hair. “Of touching you like this. Of caressing you, my dear, dear Crawly.” He noses at Crawly’s hip as he palms Crawly’s knees and pushes them up and away. Crawly plants his heels in between two pillows on the left and up on another to the right. His wings flex as Aziraphale rubs his face against Crawly’s skin and hums in delight. Then his mouth seals over Crawly’s cock and sucks him deep. Crawly’s hips thrust up and he cries out in surprise.

“Can’t! Angel!” he tries to explain, but Aziraphale only takes this as encouragement. He takes him deeper, only to slide backward, then bobs his head to take him again. Crawly’s world spins and he can only cry out and moan and thrash his head on the pillows. His feet slide across the satin cushions or under the rugs as they seek purchase. The tent spins and he keens as he comes with more force than he thought possible.

Aziraphale sucks and kisses until Crawly writhes and cries. “Too much,” he gasps.

The angel kisses his knees tenderly. “Now I believe you wanted me to make you mine?”

Crawly nods like a bobblehead as Aziraphale tucks his knees to his chest. “Here, my dear,” he says, helping Crawly hold his own legs, “right here.”

Then he goes to his desk and retrieves a jar of oil. It’s a square box, like perfume. He resumes his position as he lifts the lid free. The oil is cool against Crawly’s hole and he keens.

“I know, my darling,” the angel praises. “I’ll give you what you need in just a moment.” His fingertip rubs over Crawly’s ridged rim and tips oil there. Then he begins the incessant pressure. “Relax, just breathe, my love.” Aziraphale coaches as his finger breaches him.

It’s tight and unyielding; Crawly’s brow scrunches in worry. He’s heard that women do not enjoy their wedding night, but he has assumed that he, shaped as he currently is, would. As if hearing his thoughts, Aziraphale stills. Without moving his wrist, he leans up toward Crawly and braces his weight on his elbow. Then he slowly trades kisses with Crawly. The demon moans into them and chases Aziraphale’s mouth each time their kisses break. As his tongue rubs with Aziraphale’s he feels the way the angel circles his finger, just barely inside him, but already so much. Aziraphale nibbles on his lip and sucks on his tongue. He breaks their kisses only to press sucking bites along his jaw or ear lobe. His finger presses deeper and something inside Crawly releases. His breath catches and he cants his hips.

“Yes, my dear, just like that,” Aziraphale praises before returning to his taste of kissing Crawly’s mouth.

His finger twists and retreats before pushing back in with fresh oil. And so the kiss and touch for some time, before Crawly’s toes curl and he presses back on Aziraphale’s finger. Before he can ask, another finger joins the first. And the pattern repeats only this time Crawly is panting and flushed.

“Angel,” he whimpers. “Please.”

Aziraphale looks just as far gone. His face is ruddy and perspiration dots his temples. “Patience, my darling,” he whispers, but he is already eyeing the oil covetously. “One more, Crawly. Then I’ll—“

“Now, damnit,” Crawly snaps. “No more. I want you, now, angel.”

Aziraphale stills and considers Crawly. “Some things cannot be rushed.”

“Angel,” Crawly begs. He pushes back onto Aziraphale’s fingers, taking them all the way past both knuckles and throwing back his head in pleasure. “Angel, now, please.”

The fingers withdraw and Crawly sobs in frustration. Then Aziraphale grabs his hips once more and tugs him even with his own body. Crawly surges up and kisses him. As he does so, cool oil coats his rim again and he feels Aziraphale press his cock head against it.

“I love you,” Crawly whispers at this.

Aziraphale’s eyes widen with a mixture of lust and love so heady that Crawly whimpers. He presses forward and Crawly lets his head fall back between his shoulder blades. Aziraphale is searing hot and hard like iron. His eyes are closed and he’s trembling as he pushes forward. It’s certainly more than the two fingers that were inside him, but it’s the difference between the first gray light of dawn and the midday sun. Crawly can’t help but tighten his knees around Aziraphale’s hips and squeeze.

“My darling,” Aziraphale whispers, but it’s filled with wonder and passion. He gives a little extra thrust and is completely sheathed in Crawly’s body. “My love,” he moans as he begins to thrust in and out of the demon’s body.

Crawly counters every thrust with one of his own and a moan to match. His body hums and Aziraphale presses openmouthed, sloppy kisses across his shoulders and collarbones. Crawly wants to return in kind, but every thrust lights him up in new ways and he can only respond with short whimpers and exhales that crescendo into sighs of pleasure. Aziraphale’s pace increases.

“My darling,” he whispers, his voice wild. “My Crow—ley,” he moans as he comes. He sags immediately onto the demon’s chest, his arms too weak to hold him up any longer. Crawly can feel Aziraphale’s dick pulsing, like pitiful aftershocks, from the power of his orgasm. Crawly further wraps around his angel, holding him in place with his arms and legs. He folds his wings around him and the feathers brush the angel’s bare bottom and back. He shivers. Crawly kisses Aziraphale’s temple and licks the salt of his sweat away.

“Angel,” he whispers. “You called me Crowley.”

Aziraphale sits up in alarm. “I’m terribly sorry, my darling. I just—”He strokes his fingers through the black feathers that shelter them. “Well, that was wonderful. I lost control of my tongue.”

The demon pulls him back down into the circle of his arms. “I think I’d like to use it.” newly-baptized Crowley says as he kisses Aziraphale’s head. “It sort of matches the feathers, you know?”

Aziraphale hums in reply and turns so that his cheek presses into Crowley’s pectoral.

“You don’t like it?” Crowley asks.

“I’ll get used to it. I thought of it after all, so it must be a good idea.”

Crowley rolls them over so that he’s on top of Aziraphale and has trapped the angel under his wings. Aziraphale slips out of him, but it’s to be expected. He presses kisses to Aziraphale’s cheeks and nose.

“My husband does have good ideas,” he whispers, merrily before kissing Aziraphale’s mouth.

Aziraphale tugs him forward and the playful kisses turn hungry once more.

* * *

**c. 2698 - 2673 BCE, Knossos, Crete**

When Gadreel was born, he was as he was meant to be. He was formless and nearly infinite. He was a Starmaker. His red hair sparkled with nebulas. His mind spun around maths and formed scientific ideas into being. He was creative when such an idea was hard for others to conceptualize. In time, it spun around questions instead of formulas. Why test the humans to destruction? Why not tell them of good and evil? Why not give them choice? Why make a planet only to ruin it?

Questions, as many know, are not welcome. Thus, he was born again as the Demon Crawly, the Serpent of Eden. He crawled from the burning sulfur and asked the same questions that got him into trouble in the first place. Lucifer himself sent him Topside just to get some peace. “Make trouble” seemed easy enough. Only, no one thought that creativity could also mean imagining oneself with Free Will.

That came with his rebirth from Aziraphale’s love. It began that very night that the angel asked him to run away. It hasn’t stopped yet. Each day, new choices arise. He should be completely “evil”, but Crowley has quickly accepted that “good” and “evil” are shades of gray. Aziraphale agrees, but quietly. He feels the ticking down of their sixteen-year clock more keenly than Crowley does.

“They’ll destroy you in the end,” he worries, one night wrapped in the bed they’ve rented in a tavern inn. 

Crowley kisses him and holds him close. “You would never let that happen.”

“How can I protect you?” Aziraphale asks, the darkness making him bold.

“Are you thinking of leaving me to make it easier later? Because, if so, forget it. I’ll never survive it, angel.”

Aziraphale kisses his forehead and they lay quiet for a while.

“I think I’ve finished the designs for the villa,” Crowley says when the silence seems less tense.

“Marvelous, my darling,” Aziraphale gushes. “Right on that lot we’ve chosen?”

Crowley hums. “The walled garden will catch the light just right. ‘Sgood for reading.”

“And growing things?” Aziraphale asks with faux-curiosity.

Crowley kisses his shoulder and then blows a raspberry there. The angel slaps him away.

“Let’s get started,” Aziraphale says breathlessly. “I could have my books brought in—“

Crowley rolls his eyes good-naturedly and swings his long legs out of bed. “C’mon then.”

They dress in the short, gaudy kilts and loincloths of the locals. Aziraphale is still uncomfortable leaving his chest exposed, so he throws on his cloak. Crowley drinks in his bare chest like art. Even so, he ties on his own woven kilt and smiles. With a quick snap, the angel’s kilt is more elaborate and closer to those worn by others. It’s patterned like a basket with white and tan braids across the majority. The codpiece is decorated with blue triangles of fabric, which now carries onto the kilt itself. Black and white pearls form dotted lines across the hem. The angel studies it in amusement.

“You spoil me,” he says.

Crowley shrugs and holds open the door. “C’mon, angel.”

It’s not a long walk to the lot they’ve selected. It’s close enough to the palace and the city’s theaters, but without being in the constant hustle and bustle of the trading market. Other smaller villas are popping up here, but no one will get too close. Crowley marked this land out as theirs upon first viewing it. No one will, or could, contest their ownership.

“The lot is larger than the others, isn’t it?” Aziraphale asks, studying the stones that Crowley put at each corner of their land. 

“Someone could have moved them but I think it’s accurate,” he says, knowing that no one would move those boundary stones because he damned them to stay put with a miracle.

Aziraphale hums, disbelievingly, before staring up the hill to the center of the plot. “Right,” he says. “How do we start?”

Crowley sets down his basket and selects one of his parchments. He unrolls it slowly and studies the lines. With a quick snap, these illuminate, in scale, on the plot-like outlines for the villa. It’s basically an L-shaped building with a wall around the side to form a protected garden. He returns the parchment to the basket and walks the perimeter of the illuminated building.

“What do you think?” he asks.

Aziraphale has not moved. He stares at the lines. “All this? For us?”

Crowley is nearly around the side of the villa when he stops. “Of course, angel. You deserve the best.” He points to the room lines he stands beside. “This is your library.”

Aziraphale’s eyes swim in tears. “It’s beautiful.”

Before he can say anymore, Crowley jogs to him and kisses him soundly. “Help me?” he asks.

Aziraphale nods. “Just tell me what to do?”

Crowley grins and stands behind the angel. He leans over his shoulder and lets his chin rest there. “Can you visualize the floor plan with me? All those lines filled with packed and clay-mortared stone?”

“A solid floor,” Aziraphale agrees and focuses on the lines.

Crowley does the same and the illuminated outlines buzz with charge and blaze with light. As they dim once more, the base of the house is complete.

“Oh, my darling!” Aziraphale yells with delight and hurries over to walk on their new floors.

Crowley chuckles and sets to work focusing on the exterior wall farthest from him. The calculations run in his head. He’s studied them so many times that he can recite them. Now is the time to watch them grow from numbers to the building. Stones, he thinks, the bottom row hewn into rectangular prisms. They slowly appear, one beside the other with solid clay-mortar filling between them. This line continues one after the other as his eyes follow the exterior line of the villa. He leaves a gap here and there for three exterior doors. One for under the columned front eave, one from the walled garden, and the last for the back for the servants.

Crowley walks the exterior of the house, watching this base form. It’s strong. He nods, pleased, then stares at the empty air before him. Slowly shimmering into existence is a mudbrick wall. These are straw-filled rectangular prisms, larger than both of Crowley’s hands. They’re formed from clay and baked in the sun until strong. At each corner, field stones appear. Some of these are leveled off to balance on the one below it. Plaster and mortar seal them and coat the interior and exterior. He moves from one wall to the next, slowly repeating the pattern.

He feels the pulse of Aziraphale’s magic matching his from inside the villa. The servants’ door appears in the empty frame. It’s strong wood. The bottom is solid, but from the middle up it’s open with rod slats. Crowley smiles. He’d commented how such a door would be functional in a kitchen for airflow. Aziraphale had listened. It warms something inside him.

Feelings aside, he focuses on the top and slowly adding the next floor. He concentrates to make this open level as solid and strong as its base. He adds cypress rods surrounded in mudbrick as headers that run across the interior walls that Aziraphale has built. Balanced across these are cypress poles. Clay presses between their ridges with plaster and mortar smoothed across. Half the floor plan is open to the sky, but the other half grows. Mudbrick runs over it as short walls. Columns bloom up in double lines to hold the roof. Crowley grins and sets to work on the roof. It’s flat reeds tied together over pole rafters. Clay appears sealing it shut.

He stands back, tired but proud. The exterior will need paint—no house stands pure white. Instead, they carry colorful patterns and frescos. Crowley walks around the house, admiring the peaks and open living area over his head. Aziraphale has added air vents into the rooms and Crowley sneaks a peek into the house through one. He can see an empty room; it’s perfect. He smiles as he jumps up the step onto the front entrance. It’s an eave held up by columns that match the upper level. Aziraphale has arched the front door but otherwise left it to plan. It opens easily and Crowley steps into their hall. It’s covered but open to the garden on one side. Columns line it and hold the upper floor steady. One day, they’ll entertain and dine here, or on the roof. The angel has already called steps into existence. They’re before him, about three meters inside the hallway, and made of sandstone. Behind these is access to the kitchen and servants’ hall. He looks into one of the rooms, Aziraphale’s study, and notes that bookshelves already exist. He smiles.

The magazine and storerooms await goods and the kitchen its supplies. The bathroom, utilizing the ingenious Minoans plumping system has water piped from the roof, into cisterns, and into the washbasins. Drains in the floor carted the wastewater off into the pipes below. The toilet was a new invention, but primitive. Crowley imagines it, along with the washbasins, into existence. A stone box with a hole in the center. The same rainwater system from the cisterns would clear away the waste. He grinned. Humans. They are clever.

He wanders on and into their bedroom. Crowley nearly trips over their belongings, which sit in a neat pile by the bed.

“A bed?” he asks, surprised. It’s a wooden framed thing on a raised platform. Each corner has a post. Strong twine weaves between them and holds up a feather mattress. Aziraphale fluffs pillows and bedding appears on the mattress.

“I’m tired,” the angel says and pulls his belt off. Crowley watches him as he strips out of his codpiece and kilt. “Come to bed, my love.”

And how can the demon resist that?

* * *

They’d come to Knossos four years prior. It’s a bustling city of palaces and frescos and statues and theater. There are artists and philosophers and scientists and authors and politicians there and they all are willing to dine at the table of an angel and demon. (Unknowingly, of course.) Ezra Fell and Anthony J. Crowley are well known in the city as patrons of the arts and sciences. They buy wine like some people buy bread. (Aziraphale buys plenty of that too.) People look the other way about their “proclivities”—not their living arrangement, of course. The love of two men is blessed by the gods, but their opinions about, well, slavery.

Mister Fell cannot stomach even going to the slave market, the locals say, and Crowley lets them believe this. He, on the other hand, can. Hell has hardened his heart in some ways and God Herself did a good deal too. Humanity’s cruelty would turn it to stone, he thinks, if he didn’t have Aziraphale’s goodness to return home to. The slave trade thrives here. Aziraphale tackles it through politics. He encourages their dinner guests to think of the people they buy and sell. He encourages legislation about the freedom and rights of children born of slaves. He encourages poets to contemplate servitude as a state. There might be a touch of the divine in these words, but who can fault him.

Crowley takes a more hands-on approach. He creates a network of people who are willing to help free those indentured. He and his associates purchased the children—always the children—and as many of the others as they can, and place them into schools he’s created. Unfortunately, the job is never-ending and causes the demon a marked amount of anxiety. Sometimes, the only way to calm him is to keep him home.

Today is a market day. Aziraphale, still clad in his dressing-gown, is watching him. Crowley feels his nerves pounding away. He feels shaky as he pulls out one of his best kilts for the day. He should have this under control. Aziraphale saw to him just hours ago. Yet, his brain is on overdrive—what if the market has become aware of their arrangement? What if they drive up the price? What if they won’t agree to sell the children to him? What if they move them to another market?

“When did you make this one, my dear?” Aziraphale asks, turning the kilt over so that the semi-precious stones reflect sunlight. It is tan with black scales like tattoos over the fabric. Red lines and dots stretch across it with glittering jet and garnets. Crowley braids his hair into one long plait then grabs it and slides it onto his hips.

“A week ago, maybe?” he admits. “Besides, it’s not really making it. Just, ya know,” He mimes snapping then rummages around in his basket for one of his handful of black codpieces. This one is treaded with silver in a honeycomb pattern. Aziraphale watches him tie it on with a judgmental look.

“That pattern is raunchy,” he laments judgmentally.

Crowley gives him a “come hither” smile and swings his hips so that his kilt swishes from his beaded belt. It’s a sudden distraction from his spinning anxieties.

“It’s my honeypot,” he purrs. He is not expecting how his husband reacts.

Aziraphale lifts one eyebrow then shoves Crowley over the foot of their bed. His feet scrabble for purchase as the angel shoves the kilt up over his waist. He slides his palm under the demon’s loincloth and squeezes his closest arse cheek.

“I’ll have you know that your ‘honeypot’ is back here in this form and all mine,” he growls before giving another possessive squeeze. He covers Crowley’s back with his body, molding them together. “I will not have my husband parading around the market, where people are actively sold, I remind you, suggesting that he is up for tasting.” 

With each word, he grinds into the demon. Crowley gives a low moan and presses back into his husband.

“Maybe I’ll keep you here today and send one of your associates in your stead. I could tie you to the bed,” Aziraphale whispers hotly into his ear. “Lay my claim in case you’ve forgotten.”

Crowley strains in his codpiece as Aziraphale’s fingers work around the front of him and unlace it.

“Angel,” he huffs, grinding into Aziraphale’s hand as he pulls the codpiece away. “It’s a market day.”

Aziraphale snaps and then returns to untying Crowley’s belt and removing his kilt. “Sorted; Pijaseme will handle it. Now then, my wily serpent,” his hands rub up Crowley’s bare chest, tweak a nipple, then slide back down his slim hips. “I do believe that you’ve worked yourself into a state.”

His dressing gown slides down his back and flutters to the floor. The angel summons a familiar jar of oil. “And that’s not what I want for you, my darling.” He coats his fingers in oil and dips them between Crowley’s cheeks.

“Perhaps it was a temptation for you,” Crowley says, canting up his hip to make Aziraphale get on with it. His brain is dizzy between what needs to be seen to and pure love-driven want. “Worked a treat.”

Aziraphale slides one digit into him, all the way past the second knuckle in response. Crowley gives out a sharp gasp and rolls up onto his toes. He’s not tight by any imagination as he’d ridden Aziraphale hours before. However, the angel’s fingers find his prostate immediately and set to rubbing slow circles over it. The demon keens.

“Hmm.” Aziraphale hums as he lines himself up behind his husband. “A temptation for an angel of the Lord.” He presses in beside his finger and Crowley tosses back his head with a throaty groan.

He can feel Aziraphale’s finger trying to keep rubbing in the tight confines he’s created. Crowley’s channel clenches down and he can feel both finger and cock. His back arches at this knowledge and he cries out again. Aziraphale takes an unsteady breath and tries to rub the pad of his finger over Crowley’s prostate again.

“Angel, angel, angel,” Crowley chants as he tries to change angles by raising his ass further. His feet slide on the stone floor and the footboard of their bed cuts into his stomach.

Aziraphale shifts and pulls his hand free only to grab onto each of Crowley’s hips and place him how he wants. Crowley sobs as the movement jostles Aziraphale inside him. It’s the exact angle he wants. Aziraphale slides free then slams back into him.

“Tempting me,” he pants as he grabs onto Crowley’s plait and pulls it gently. “All because you needed fucked.”

Crowley presses backward to meet the angel’s thrust forward. Aziraphale releases his hair and regains his hold on the demon’s slender hips. It’s not a power play, not really. Crowley enjoys being possessed by his husband, and, yes, maybe he could be better at communicating his worries. They both could.

Aziraphale suddenly shifts them again, spinning around to sit on the bed with Crowley in his lap. He does not release his tight hold on Crowley’s hips, instead using them and the strength in his arms to lift him up and then lower him back down at the pace he wants. It’s the most erotic thing Aziraphale has ever done and it makes the demon clench down on him. The angel draws a sharp breath and Crowley takes the moment to scramble free and turn around in Aziraphale’s lap. He settles back onto his lap facing him and lines his cock back up to his entrance, then slides back down with a shimmy.

“This seems,” Aziraphale pauses to give a little hum of pleasure, “reminiscent of last night.”

Crowley kisses him, long and slow as he works his hips up and down. “I like to make you feel good.”

Aziraphale shoots up and rolls Crowley onto his hands and knees.

“You had your fun last night,” he reminds as he kneels behind the demon and slides back home again. “It’s my turn to surprise you.”

It’s deep and dirty, thrusts that make the bed frame squeak and groan. Then, with a whisper of miracle, Aziraphale’s cock enlarges and Crowley yells. He releases his hand on Crowley’s hip and braces on the bed frame post. With each slap of flesh, his cock rubs on Crowley’s prostrate. It’s wider and longer—a new sensation that has him seeing stars. Then Aziraphale reaches under him and encircles Crowley’s cock. He does not stroke him but allows his own thrusts to rock his husband into his hand. Aziraphale’s hips snap forward again and again as he chases his release. Crowley alternates between shoving his cock into Aziraphale’s hand or shoving his ass back into the deep thrusts. Then, without warning, he’s coming with a howl. His husband is but a breath behind him.

They collapse, completely uncoordinated, onto their mattress. Crowley’s skin is sticky and hums with pleasure. He feels Aziraphale shrink back to his usual girth and length, before sliding free.

“Angel,” he moans at the loss, “that was…”

“Exactly what you needed,” Aziraphale replies as he rolls onto his back and tugs Crowley onto his chest. “You needed out of your head.”

“Yeah,” Crowley says slowly as sleep gathers behind his eyes, “but that was also fucking hot.”

Aziraphale chuckles deeply.

* * *

When they’ve been in Knossos for seven years, a letter arrives from Hell. Aziraphale stares at it as if his glare can burn it from existence.

“We have Her promise—nine years remaining,” he argues as Crowley lifts the parchment and slices the wax free.

“We may have Her promise, but Hell doesn’t tend to follow Her orders,” he says as he opens the letter.

_Crawly,_

_Meet at the port at predawn. Don’t be late._

There is no signature. Crowley purses his lips. Fire licks from his fingers and up the parchment.

“So,” he says brightly as the parchment dissolves to ash, “what would you like to do today? Hike the hills? Visit the market?”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale warns.

“Don’t worry, angel, I’m not going. It’s a trap.”

Aziraphale blinks at him. “You can’t ignore them.”

Crowley grins, canines appearing sharp in the light, “I can. And plan to. We have nine promised more years and I’m having every second of them.”

He stretches over and kisses Aziraphale soundly. “How about I open us a bottle of wine?”

* * *

Another letter arrives from Hell when they’ve lived in Knossos for eight and a half years. Another at nine years, two following that, and four in year eleven. By year twelve, Hell sends one every week. All are ignored.

Crowley takes Aziraphale to the theater. They dine in restaurants. They buy and drink wine. The letters arrive. The letters are burned. The years slide by too quickly in a blaze of happiness and love.

In the last months of their fifteenth year, Aziraphale answers one of the letters from Hell. Crowley does not learn about this until he’s sent it off.

“I’ve agreed to meet them,” Aziraphale says shortly.

“Angel, no! Absolutely not! No!” Crowley yells, scales rippling across the backs of his hands and arms.

“We have another year guaranteed for us. I will not allow them to cut it short—“

“Angel,” Crowley interrupts, suddenly gentle, “just because our sixteen years are ‘up’ doesn’t mean anything. I’m not going anywhere. We will just take our missions, do our jobs, and come home. Every time.”

Aziraphale stares at him. Then, without a word, he snaps, and somewhere, deep in Hell, his letter devolves into a shower of sparks. (The fireworks are technically holy. The demon holding the letter is immediately smited and dissolves into a smoldering puddle.)

“You think we can?” Aziraphale asks, with unbridled hope. “Really?”

Crowley reaches over and takes both of the angel’s hands in his own. “Yes. I intend to. I don’t know how much they’ll be against it—“

“They’ll kill you!” Aziraphale yanks his hands free.

“—but I’ll fight them every second to get back to you and our life here.”

“Crowley, that’s very romantic, but darling, they’re going to destroy you. Hell will destroy you. That’s what the letters are about,” Aziraphale says wringing his hands.

“And what were you going to do? Rush in there to some meeting and kill two or three demons? Then what?” Crowley asks in frustration. He tries to take Aziraphale’s hands again, but he turns away.

“I was going to make a deal, if you must know,” the angel pouts.

Crowley stares. “A deal? Angel, what could…” The penny, as they say, dropped. “No, no way. Angel, you cannot Fall.”

“She offered it, didn’t She? We could be together?” he asks, his voice sounding assured but still trembling.

“No, Aziraphale, that’s not how Hell works. They don’t just give up and they never make a bargain that they can lose something from. Everything is sabotage and backstabbing,” he says, trying to stay calm. “They’d cast one of us into the pit and make the other one watch. They like to do that to married couples.”

Aziraphale looks ill.

“I worried about you too, when you go back into Heaven’s employ,” he begins, but Aziraphale laughs.

“They’re angels, beings of love! They won’t—“

“You think they won’ have something to say about you bedding a demon?” he asks and his words hang there.

Aziraphale scrubs his face with his hands then knots his fingers together over his stomach.

“I’m going for a walk,” he finally says and lifts his cloak from the peg by the door.

“Yeah, we’ll feed the gulls, look for some shells—“ Crowley begins, but Aziraphale holds up his hand.

“I need to think, Crowley.”

And he goes walking alone. Crowley opens and finishes three bottles of wine before the angel returns. They go to bed then and do not touch one another, even though they both want to.

* * *

Things are different in that last year. For one, Aziraphale rarely returns to their bed. Instead, he buries himself into the human written word, seeking out any wording that will gift them more time. For another, the days that mark their last year together are fraught with sadness. Crowley’s anxiety spirals nearly unchecked. Each time he worries that something is their last time together at a certain activity—their last play together, their last lecture at the palace, their last bull festival—he teeters on the edge of some sort of emotional brink.

Mostly, he takes it out on himself. He paces their home in long strides and speaks to himself disparagingly.

“—an idiot for thinking you could have it all,” he mutters as he marches across their first floor. The sea wind whips his hair. “Stupid enough to think you could love an angel. Unforgivable, that’s me and still so stupid.”

He drinks heavily. It’s the fastest way to pass the lonely months. Their storeroom shelves empty by two and three bottles at a time. He uncorks them and gulps. Then he sleeps. His body is heavy so often these days. His back and legs hurt. Crowley will see the sun slanting into their room and roll away from it. The sleep is heavy and dreamless. It doesn’t have failed expectations. 

Other times, his ire turns on the slave traders. He miracles them with every annoyance he can think of—hornets follow them everywhere, wheels break in every pothole they encounter, and hemorrhoids grow every Tuesday. They trip. They get blisters. They miss boats and caravans and rendezvous.

When this does not satisfy Crowley’s bitterness, he yells at the plants in the walled garden. They begin to tremble at his approach. He inspects them and destroys those found wanting.

The letters from Hell don’t help. They come constantly. Sometimes three times a day. They order Crowley to meet them. They demand that he return to Hell. He incinerates them dispassionately, knowing that each ignored summons will mean more pain later. It’s Hell, after all. He feels the panic build as this latest note burns away. He’s angry and frightened. More than anything, he wants his husband. It’s the first time he’s actually thought it, he notes. When did he last speak to Aziraphale? When was the last time the angel left his study?

With a tentative knock on the door, Crowley eases it open into Aziraphale’s library. Books, clay tablets, and scrolls line every surface. Many are open or marked. The angel looks up in annoyance.

“Yes?” he asks.

Crowley nearly retreats. Instead, he shuffles in, even with his confidence gone. He licks his lips and inhales. He doesn’t know what to say. Aziraphale shifts in his chair.

“Crowley?” he asks.

It’s too much. He’ll only disappoint him, so Crowley turns quickly and leaves the library. The sun is setting and the garden drips with rosy gold light. The demon storms over to a date palm and it begins to shake in terror. It’s too much just then, so instead, he throws up the door to the wine store and grabs a bottle in each hand. He’s halfway up the steps to the first floor when Aziraphale calls him.

“Crowley?”

He stops on the step and turns to face him. Aziraphale is in one of his Hebrew tunics. It’s long cream, coarse fabric knotted at the waist with a simple belt. His feet are bare and his hair is unruly curls.

“What did you need, my dear?” he asks. He steps forward into the bright pink and gold light of the setting sun and Crowley’s heart nearly stops with love.

“Drink?” he finally manages through a tight throat.

“I’m sorry?” Aziraphale asks, coming still closer. “I’m afraid I didn’t hear you.”

Crowley clears his throat. “I came to ask you to have a drink with me.”

Aziraphale dithers. His fingers knot into one another over his waist. He glances back to his study and Crowley sighs with defeat.

“We might as well give it up now,” he mutters at the same time a breeze blows his words to his husband.

Aziraphale looks shocked. “Crowley?”

He shrugs and climbs the stairs. A quick thought uncorks a bottle and he takes a long swig from it without stopping. Wine spills out over his mouth and drips down his chin. He takes another swallow. The first floor is a masterpiece. Its columns are stately. Its roof is sturdy. Crowley takes another long drink and spins around to take in his craftsmanship.

“‘sHouse to be proud of,” he says gallantly. He takes another long pull from his bottle and stares out into the distance over the short wall. “It’s supposed to be home though.”

Aziraphale clears his throat from the top of the stairs. Crowley drinks again.

“My darling?” the angel begins. “What do you mean by that?”

Crowley laughs so abruptly that wine-colored spittle shoots from his mouth.

Aziraphale continues, “This _is_ our home, my dear.”

“Not anymore,” Crowley says with the brazen attitude that comes from most of a bottle of wine on an empty stomach. He drinks often enough that his alcohol tolerance is high. He expects to be nearly drunk, so he is. “We’re living here like shadows. Might as well call it now. It’s just a place to read or sleep. ‘Snot a home. Not anymore.”

Aziraphale touches him on the shoulder and he leans into it with a whine. “My dear, that’s not true.”

Crowley studies him unsteadily. “When did you last come out of your study? Hmm? Have we spoken in weeks? It’s been months since we’ve made love,” he chokes a bit on these words, but he’s drunk so it’s okay, he assures himself. “I can’t tell when I last kissed you. Or laughed with you.”

“I’m sorry, Crowley, really I am, but I’m trying to find a way to get us more time—“ Crowley touches Aziraphale’s lower lip gently.

“We have time, angel. Now.” He plucks at Aziraphale’s lip, then chuckles and drops inelegantly onto one of the couches arranged under the roof. “Want a blow job? You told me I’m good with my mouth. I have a silver tongue, I’m told. Could talk anyone into anything.”

Aziraphale pries the nearly empty wine bottle from the demon’s hand and tosses it back in a long drink. Crowley watches the way his Adam’s apple moves when he swallows. It’s a smooth bob with each gulp.

“Let’s get drunk,” Crowley decides. Aziraphale lowers the now empty bottle and studies Crowley. “It’ll be our last hurrah before the divorce!” He pops the cork free and lifts the bottle to his lips.

“Divorce?” Aziraphale whispers, brokenly.

Crowley lowers the bottle without taking a sip and studies the angel. “Remember, ‘sixteen years of wedlock’. She didn’t mean for us to have a happily ever after, angel.”

The angel sits on the sofa next to Crowley and tugs the bottle free of his hands. He sets it on the floor. Next, he cups Crowley’s face in his hands.

“My darling, no. She cannot end this. I’m yours and you are mine. We are one flesh. What God has joined, no one can separate,” he whispers.

Crowley’s voice is suddenly thick. “She can do as She wishes, love. She always has.”

Aziraphale kisses him, chastely. “I love you and you are my husband.”

Crowley surges to action, first returning the wine to its bottle, then tangling Aziraphale in his arms wildly. He kisses him frantically. “I thought I’d lost you,” he admits between kisses. Aziraphale pulls him closer and kisses him with the same fevered passion. “I love you so much, angel.”

"My darling, forgive me," Aziraphale replies, kissing him. "You've not lost me. You never could."

Crowley pushes Aziraphale flat onto the sofa and they exchange heated kisses long after the sun sets behind the horizon.

* * *

On their sixteenth anniversary, they wake before the sun and make love slowly. Crowley removes each of Aziraphale’s articles of clothing like he’s unwrapping a fragile piece of pottery. He kisses each inch of skin. Aziraphale pins Crowley to the mattress and takes him apart with each thrust of his hips. It’s not aggressive or silly. It’s not passion-driven.

It’s bittersweet.

They watch one another as they dress for the day. They stay at one another’s side until long after the sun fades away.

“Maybe they’ll come tomorrow,” Aziraphale worries and they stay up on their first floor long past midnight. No one comes for them the next day or the next.

In time they begin to relax.

“I was thinking,” Crowley says as he burns up a letter from Hell. This one reminds him that his amnesty has ended. “Perhaps we should move.”

Aziraphale looks around their walled garden. He turns a slow circle and takes in their lovely hall and stately columns. “Leave our home?”

Crowley watches him with a steady gaze. “We could give them a merry chase to find us.”

Aziraphale considers this. “What if we made a plan to run as a Doomsday option?”

They agree. If Heaven or Hell come knocking, they’ll implement the plan, but until then they stay in their home.

* * *

Aziraphale and Crowley have lived in Knossos for nearly twenty-six years. They’re hosting friends for a dinner party in their walled garden. A table stretches in between Crowley’s well-tended (and threatened) roses and their six guests drink good wine and eat good food and toast their good hosts. One of their guests, a famous musician, rises from the table and strums on his instrument. The alto lyre plays warm melodies and Crowley pushes back from the table.

“Dance with me, angel,” he says, his voice light with joy but heavy with emotion. Aziraphale considers this. Angels, Crowley knows, do not dance. Aziraphale has never been one to toe the line, however. He takes his husband’s hand and Crowley pulls him to his feet. They wrap arms around one another and sway to the music. The summer night is still hot and the air buzzes with locus singing their own love songs.

Aziraphale smiles. Crowley smiles back. Then a flash of fear alters the angel’s face.

“They’re coming!” he warns, but it’s simultaneous.

Heavenly lightning bolts strike the pavement stones of their garden and their guests scream. Demons dig out of the dirt in Crowley’s planters. Without a second thought, as heavenly and hellish soldiers attack, they both vanish to their Doomsday point.


	6. c. 2040 BCE, Thebes, Egypt - c. 1890 BCE, Dholavira, India

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Notes: Since Gaiman/Pratchett are playing with “literalists” of Biblical tales, the dates and times get ALL messed up. For example, according to the show, the Flood happens in 3004 BCE, but according to historians who believe in science, we are looking closer to the 24th Century BCE (if it happened at all). I’m trying to use G/P’s logic and roll in real events and cultures into impossible time; it’s not going as well as I’d hoped. Therefore, we’re going to have to play fast and loose with history.
> 
> 12/25/2020: I've playing with the dates because my weird loops of time are messing me up. Please see that all the years have changed in ALL the chapters.

**c. 2040 BCE, Thebes, Egypt**

They collapse into one another as they crash onto the hillside. Far beyond them is the great city of Thebes, but right now, they only stare at one another.

“Are you all right?” is all Aziraphale can think to say.

Crowley nods, barely noticeable in the darkness around them. Immediately, the area is illuminated with holy light and the demon shrinks back. The Archangel Gabriel appears in the center of the blinding light. Aziraphale tries to get between them and his husband.

“Let him alone!” he warns.

Behind him, Crowley shrieks, “Aziraphale!”

The angel spins around. Crowley claws at the ground as he sinks into it. All around him, the sand dissolves into an entrance for Hell. Aziraphale grabs Crowley's arms and tries to pull him back out of the chasm. In it, Aziraphale sees boiling lava and smells the sulfur pits. The sand slides down into the hole from under the angel’s feet.

“Let him go!” Gabriel orders, but Aziraphale plants his feet and tugs.

Crowley kicks at the lip of the ground as it collapses around him. He hopes for leverage.

“He must be punished!” the Archangel continues.

Aziraphale yanks and Crowley’s torso slides up over the lip of the collapsing sand. His legs are still too close to the pits of Hell for the angel’s comfort. Already, the earth beneath Crowley’s belly is slipping into the chasm. They’ll have to hurry to get him out before it collapses again.

Gabriel stomps toward them, “He is to return to Hell forthwith. Amnesty is over—“

Aziraphale’s hands are sweaty where they hold Crowley’s forearms. He gives a crazed grin to his husband and leans backward, hoping its additional leverage to get him back onto solid earth.

Gabriel stands over them, nearly floating atop the sand. “Principality Aziraphale, Guardian of the Eastern Gate, you are to return to your post and see to Isaac’s blessing of his sons Esau and Jacob. The Almighty is pleased with the depth of your love,” at this, the Archangel pauses to make a disgusted face. “She restores you to your position of Grace within Her Great Plan.”

Crowley’s shoulders actually sag. “You’re safe,” he whispers.

Aziraphale takes Crowley’s relaxing in alarm and tightens his hold. Crowley senses his worry and tries to wriggle upward, using the toe of his sandal to dig into the falling sand. The angel glances back down into the chasm where Crowley hangs. Heat pulses across his face. Gabriel scuffs his toe in the sand.

“Of course, you’ll need to let the demon get back into his place in the Great Plan,” Gabriel notes. “If you don’t let him fall, then I’m afraid,” he points at Aziraphale’s own feet.

Aziraphale is sinking. He is already nearly to his knees in the sand and he can feel Hellfire’s heat on the soles of his feet. He leans further forward, holding onto Crowley.

“No! I will not let him fall again!” Aziraphale shouts, his wings spouting with a strong snap. He beats them in strong flaps and bears them up off the sand. He is bright and terrifying in preparation to defend his husband. Crowley stares at him in wonder.

**AZIRAPHALE, THE DEMON CRAWLY WILL RETURN TO HELL.**

The Heavenly order blows him out of the air and they tumble into the sand. Aziraphale’s feathers take the direct blast of Metatron’s words spoken with holy power. Aziraphale manages to guide their crash landing away from the existing chasm, but Crowley lands on the sand. Immediately, the earth opens, and Aziraphale rolls them away from this new hole. The scent of brimstone is all around them. The angel lies on his back with his beloved on his chest. Crowley strokes his cheek and smiles down at him indulgently.

“I think I’m out of bargaining options, angel,” he says softly. “No more ‘get outta Hell free’ cards to play.”

“What God has united, let no man separate,” the angel whispers.

Gabriel snarls, “This is not the work of man, sunshine! This is the Lord’s decision. The Fallen already fell. Can’t undo a demon! He belongs in Hell.”

“No more than I do! He belongs with me,” Aziraphale argues, hiding Crowley’s head under his chin. He can feel the way the sand is beginning to give way under his back and wings. Each grain that slides down toward sulfur feeds his panic. “Do not take the best part of me away,” Aziraphale begs, heartbroken and afraid.

**YOU ARE ONE FLESH, YET YOU ARE OF DIFFERENT NATURES.**

Says the Voice of God. Gabriel smirks. Heat pulses in the sand under Aziraphale. Like a ticking down of their seconds between now and oblivion. In all this, Crowley stretches up and kisses Aziraphale slowly and lovingly. Tears track down his eyes, but they’re trying to reflect the same bright and happy yellow that they have for these past twenty-six years. Had Aziraphale treasured each second he was given? Was any of it wasted?

“Be well, love,” Crowley blesses him with another kiss. “I’ll see you soon, angel.”

Then, before Aziraphale can reply, Crowley leaps up and dives for the chasm. Aziraphale screams and lunges after him, the sand rolling to stop him, yet cascading down to trap him. Crowley slips near the edge and turns back to see his husband.

“Love ya, angel,” he says with a cheeky grin.

“Crowley, no! Wait!” Aziraphale scrambles up again, tripping again in the sands. He beats his wings, trying to get enough dust loose from them that he can fly. He’s racing, but he’s not fast enough. The demon blows him a kiss, then steps backward and plunges out of sight.

Aziraphale screams for him, even as the earth closes up and the Hellfire light dies away. Sobs wrack him and he digs, barehanded, where the entrance to Hell had been.

“Come back! Come back to me,” he sobs as he throws sand aside. Grains roll back down into the hole.

“I wonder which if your corporation will die first or you’ll dig to Hell?” Gabriel asks with no curiosity. He grabs Aziraphale by the scruff of the wing and they disappear.

**c. 1983 BCE, Shechem, Canaan to Knossos, Crete**

Aziraphale oversees the plan: Esau wants stew, Jacob wants his birthright. Thus done, Aziraphale puts on his cloak and takes up his staff. He packs a water skin and a small bundle of provisions. Then, he walks north for many weeks. There’s a ferryman to take him to Crete and from there, he walks from the port.

Their hillside lot in Knossos has not changed. It stands there as perfect and beloved as ever. The villa, however, is gone. It’s nothing but a crater. Aziraphale approaches it slowly and sees how the mixture of Hellfire has melted the clay and holy lightning has scorched the wood. No rafter is whole, no pavement stone is unbroken, no column is intact. He walks it carefully, avoiding the char of Hellfire. Even without the walls, he knows every step. This was his home. It’s where he learned to be a better friend and a faithful spouse. Here he mapped out Crowley’s skin and memorized his sighs and laughs. It is gone. He chokes on a sob.

He reaches what was the L of the house’s design—their bedroom. Extra hate was poured here. He nearly wretches when he feels it pulse through his feet. It used to reverberate with love. Some angel has used burnt charcoal to write “DEMON FUCKER” in Enochian. The letters coat the broken paving stones. Aziraphale considers the charcoal—it might have been his burned marriage bed frame. It should anger him. It only makes him give a sad laugh. Crowley could help him make jokes if he were here.

Aziraphale walks a slow circuit around the room. Here was their window vent. There was where Crowley’s trunk sat and here their wardrobe leaned. Nothing remains. He kicks in the ash, looking for a trinket. Sometimes he finds metal slag. Hellfire has burned even their bronze down to nothing. Heartbroken, but unsurprised, he climbs over the broken pottery and melted mudbrick. There is nothing to save. Then, the base of what was once the wall catches his eye. It’s the cornerstone of their bedroom— the L of their villa. Somehow, it’s been overlooked. The rectangular prism is whole. It’s still as perfectly smooth and level as when Crowley called it into existence. Aziraphale touches it and lets a grieving cry escape him. Where is his love? Is he still alive?

The miracle it takes to free and then shrink the cornerstone is going to cause him paperwork later. It doesn’t matter. Their villa’s cornerstone now fits compactly in his palm like a talisman. With nothing else to salvage, Aziraphale turns his back on the ruins of his home. Then he begins to walk without direction.

**c. 1935 BCE, Scania Island, Sweden**

The men gather. They’re dressed in their thick furs and armed with their harpoons. They’ll hunt seals today. Aziraphale watches them. He’s traveled since he left Crete and left blessings over the little towns and hamlets he encounters. No matter how wonderful the people, Aziraphale never set down roots. In fact, this is the first place he’s lingered in two years. The people are so unlike those he’s encountered before. They’re hearty and robust—they tackle the challenges of living in this climate. The angel admires their resiliency. He wishes he were made of such stern stuff. He could have Fallen and stayed with Crowley.

Those thoughts are dangerous. She might still cast him down. Aziraphale pulls his hood tighter. He’s not sure that Crowley would forgive him for such a choice. Memory flashes behind his eyes: Crowley dangling into a pit, yet visibly relaxing when he knows that Aziraphale is safe from Hell. It aches. How he misses his love.

Aziraphale is not living the same way he did in Knossos. There he could breathe. Then he could dream and love with the fervor that Heaven dismisses. He dove into his interests and savored the very marrow of life. Now, instead of participating in life, he studies it academically. Aziraphale is like an archivist without parchment for records. (All his other records were incinerated in Crete. Sometimes, he thinks his home burned there, but his heart burned in Egypt. He steers away from those dark waters once more.)

The people here have no alphabet for him to learn, so he sketches. His art is rudimentary—angels are made to praise and guard, not to create. The ones who did that all became demons. Using a burned twig and wide strips of bark, he draws studies of their pottery. He sketches their hands as they cook. He traces their axeheads and jewelry. He’s even attended a funeral and watched as the grave filed with weapons, tools, and food. He does not draw the body or its afterlife goods—he focuses on the faces of the people as they give their sacrifices. Today, he’ll have something new to capture as he shadows their seal hunt. They board boats and he goes with them. Aziraphale exhales; it hangs white on the frigid air. The water is quiet as they row away from the settlement.

In the stillness, the angel reaches under his furs and fingers the cornerstone. It’s smaller than it was when he first rescued it. Bronze wire wraps it securely onto a necklace of braided twine. The plait reminds him of Crowley’s hair. The stone is smoothed from the oil on his hands and his frequent touches. If Aziraphale’s love were the persistent drip of water, then this stone would be hollowed into a bowl. He wonders where Crowley is.

He lets his eyes drop closed and meditates on the lapping of the water against the hull. He exhales and stretches out his senses, looking for his husband. Heaven has limited this ability. It’s like running into a stone wall. He is abruptly thrown from his task and into memory.

_The smell of red wine—smoked oak and its tannins, along with vanilla and plums. He can hear it splashing into their good clay goblets. He sees long fingers wrap around the red baked clay. There is dark varnish on Crowley’s nails. Aziraphale’s eyes drink up the line of his long arm and stutter to a halt as the demon throws back his head and guffaws. The flickering lantern light is like gold on his throat. Aziraphale gives a breathy, gleeful laugh of his own. It’s mostly because he’s made Crowley laugh so hard, but part of him is simply delighted to hear it. He reaches out and grabs his husband’s hand. Crowley knits their fingers together and opens his eyes, mirth still dancing in them._

The boats slip onto the shore. Aziraphale opens his eyes and lets the memories of his personal heaven slip back into the past. He should be grateful that someone decided to make his memories happy when he seeks out Crowley. They could have tortured him with their rows and angry words. The Archangels know that his happiness is a form of torture. This is his punishment for looking for his husband.

The angel disembarks and climbs the rocky beach while the hunters seek out their prey. He came here to sketch it, but now he finds no interest in the butchery. He notes white stripes of bird dung and green lichen on the rocks. He kicks at the round, smooth stones so they clack against another. The waves move languidly onto the gray-stoned shore.

Then, suddenly, he’s no longer on the island.

**c. Outside time, Heaven**

Heaven is not as it was. It’s sterile. Aziraphale turns in a confused circle. The last time he visited, it was full of heavenly choruses and eager angels. Now, he’s alone in a white, empty room that seems to lack any sort of physical boundaries. Distances are meaningless and so is perception.

As he turns, Aziraphale notes that he is standing next to his corporal form. He stretches out his wings and blinks his eyes. He shakes his many heads and cracks his many necks. His halo expands. Then he studies his corporation. Depression weighs on it. He feels the emotion of it now, but it lacks the physical aches that he’s recently experienced. No dull pain from his chest. No stiff knees. He blinks a few of his thousand eyes and squints with the others. There, somehow hiding behind reality, are three young angels.

“Hello,” he greets as his cogs whirl.

All three shift and slide into this plane. They’re spinning and flapping and blinking. Aziraphale tries to smile, then reminds himself that those gestures do not translate in this form. He thinks about the pleasure of meeting them brings him and feels the others reflect it, albeit with more curiosity. The first angel spins like a motor around Aziraphale’s corporation.

“We were sent to clean it,” he says, his pistons firing. He glances at Aziraphale’s corporation with keen interest.

“Oh, there’s no need for that,” Aziraphale says with a feather wiggle. “I bathe that form on Earth.”

The second angel considers Aziraphale then studies his corporation. “It’s not dressed like what you were issued.”

Aziraphale can’t help himself. A warm, nearly paternal amusement seeps out of him. “No, I’ve traveled to a different, colder climate. Humans produce clothing that contains body heat better.”

The third angel continues to flutter further away but is clearly curious. She appears to want to ask something, then her eyes shift away. Aziraphale tries to guess at her curiosity and continues his explanation.

“The clothing is made from animal hides or skins. The creatures live in that climate, so their furs are more suited for the weather than human bodies. The humans eat the meat and tan, or, umm, preserve? the skins. These are used like fabrics.” He watches the first two angels peer closely at the hood around his face. “You can touch it if you’d like.”

They both leap back in surprise. “We don’t have physical receptors!” one says.

Aziraphale rolls some of his eyes in amusement. “So make some.”

The first angel stares at him with almost all his eyes. “ _Make_ some? We’re not—“

Aziraphale wiggles in annoyance. “No, not _creating_ them. You already have them designed for every other being. Just, expect that you can access,” he searches for the word to best suit their understanding, “that ability.”

“Expect?” the third angel asks, still further away than the others.

“Imagine it— that is probably a better way to explain it.”

“Imagine?” she asks again.

The second angel, however, is hyper-focused. They hesitantly reach out and touch the fur cuff on Aziraphale’s coat. They squeal with delight. “It’s so… I don’t know the word!”

Aziraphale watches them as they touch the leather of his shoulder and the stitching around his hood. The first angel seems to be trying to make this physical touch sense apply to them, but with limited success.

“I feel… pressure?” he says.

“No!” the second exclaims, “it’s _soft_!” They giggle. “I know what ‘soft’ is!”

Aziraphale is mesmerized. He remembers the delight at every new thing about Creation. How long ago that seems. Without warning, he sees delighted yellow eyes hidden in a mane of auburn curls flash across his memory.

_“Didn't you have a flaming sword? You did! It was flaming like anything!”_

He nearly gasps in pain. Then, before he can compartmentalize this mixed feeling of anguish and love, Uriel is at his side. Aziraphale expects a reprimand, as do the younger angels apparently because they jump back from his corporation and tremble. Uriel reassures them all.

“Thank you, Principality, for teaching about physical senses. You’ve given a fine lesson,” she says. Aziraphale studies her face, tone, and words. To his surprise, he only finds honesty. “Forgive me, little pupils,” she says to the three, “but I must steal away your teacher.”

They wiggle their feathers at him as Uriel guides him away. Aziraphale returns the gesture, uncoordinatedly. Uriel guides them and suddenly they are much further away from where they were. Measurements mean nothing here where space is infinite. Aziraphale studies the Archangel at his side. Uriel is a strange mix of corporal and non-corporal forms. He can see her spinning belts and cogs, but overlaid is her petite, dark-skinned form. Gold flecks dot her forehead and nose.

“The little angels are so young,” she says, almost amused. “They do not remember the Great War. They’ve never experienced Earth.”

“Perhaps they should,” Aziraphale replies, but adds nothing further. He is suddenly before the Archangels.

_All_ the Archangels.

It’s a sea of gold. Gabriel’s gold fluttering wings. Sandalphon’s gold, sharp teeth. Michael’s gold-flecked cheekbones and eyelids. Raphael’s gold ear-stretching gauges. Raguel’s gold, squared fingernails. Camael’s gold lips and flecked eyelids. Aziraphale blinks all his eyes as he studies their whirling motor wheels and human overlays. He’s not sure where to focus, so he divides his eyes between each of the seven, then between each form. It’s a lot of input.

He wonders what Crowley would make of it.

“Aziraphale!” Gabriel exclaims with a clap. “We’ve called you here for a task.”

“It would have been easier if you were still in the Promised Land,” Sandalphon gripes and Gabriel gives a dramatic look of agreement.

“Bygones and water and bridges and such!” Gabriel calls. Then he seems to be reciting a script, “In honor of your great love, the Lord sends you to find Jacob and force him to make an offering—“

Aziraphale interrupts without a second thought, “Force? I think I may have misheard. I can’t force a human to do anything. Free will—“

“That’s exactly right!” Camael exclaims.

They look better than the last time Aziraphale saw them. They’d taken their patronage of war to heart in the Great War battles. Aziraphale had led his battalion under Camael’s orders. Aziraphale remembers, with a sharp blast of pain, how Camael’s feathers were bent out of shape and had been tinged with ichor. Now they seem healed, but they still hold the same intensity as they did in the war.

“Her plan must allow for free will or else all souls would come to Heaven. We must allow them to make choices!” Camael argues.

“It’s like you want Hell to gain souls,” Gabriel complains.

Aziraphale wants to wring his hands, but they’re in another area of Heaven. “Not at all. An offering must be made by the human in the right frame of mind. One given by force is no better than no offering.”

Raguel hums. Her blind eyes are cloudy but pleased. She’s clearly already said this.

Sandalphon snorts. He ducks his head and mutters to Gabriel, “Traitor.” His voice is not soft at all and his word echos.

Raguel reels around with flapping wings. “You will mind your tongue.”

Sandalphon’s feathers ruffle and he puffs up with bluster. His voice is at normal volume.“He has chosen to dip into the goods of Hell,” his multitude of eyes shine with delight at his double entendre. “He is no loyal angel.”

“His marriage is recording in the Scrolls of Heaven,” Uriel says, her unsure. “The Almighty has signed it Herself.”

Gabriel and Sandalphon share a look before Gabriel speaks. “That may be, but I’m sure She is aiming for some sort of… kindness in light of Aziraphale’s dilemma. Demons are an abomination against Her Grace—”

“How dare you,” Aziraphale growls. All his eyes focus on the Messenger of God and they blaze in anger.

“They’re repellant,” Sandalphon snaps. “You’ve been taken in by Hell’s snare—the serpent’s thrall!”

Michael cuts his rant short. Her tone is quiet, but stern. “Demons are of our same stock.”

Raphael speaks for the first time. “I will remind you that Aziraphale is not the only one who has loved one who has fallen.”

Michael stands up straight as if readying for battle, and Uriel looks at her feet. Gabriel, however, is the most surprising. He pales, then flushes, then looks defiant.

“We are all beings of love,” Michael finally says, her voice steady. “I cannot fault Aziraphale for loving and I will not question Her logic in blessing it. We are as She created us!”

Sandalphon lacks the basic ability to read a room, Aziraphale notes. The Archangel plows on, ignoring Gabriel’s warning look.

“Right, I forgot, you always had a soft spot for that demon who used to be a Cherubim!” he says, tauntingly at Michael. Her eyes sharpen like daggers. “You want a semi-holy union too?”

Raguel snaps with ferocity, “Sandalphon. Enough! We are not here to judge how our brothers and sisters love.”

“We’re here to sort out Jacob’s punishment,” Uriel clarifies as if anyone had forgotten. There is a general disquiet as the Archangels mutter and their pistons fire. Aziraphale feels that he should say something.

“Thank you, by the way, for not using the sheep. They use a good bit of power to revive,” Aziraphale says, by rote. He’s so off-kilter he’s not even sure what he’s saying. Just talking aloud about Crowley feels like he has opened up a hole in his chest.

All the Archangels stare at him confusedly.

“Anyhow, thank you for the check-in,” he says planning to make his escape.

“You’ll go to Jacob,” Gabriel declares. “He will give an offering. And you will not be returning to the heathens.”

“Heathens?” Aziraphale demands, suddenly enraged. Others are siding with him, but he speaks over them. “She hasn’t given them any clue that She’s there. Worse, you will not let me go and end their ignorance.”

“So you bless them for being ignorant?” Uriel asks, no longer on his side. “I’ve seen your miracle report. You are using your powers and Her Grace for all sorts of frivolity.”

“He’s healed animals and man,” Raphael argues. He has taken on the form of an old man with dark, wrinkled skin. He stares at them all in frustration. “How can easing pain and suffering be frivolous?”

“Protecting crops and homes,” Michael offers, unsure of herself but attempting to hide it, “does not seem unimportant either. That’s saving humans—he is a protector.”

“He’s also given himself new clothes and shoes, not to mention try to use his sight to find the demon,” Gabriel argues. “Besides, that’s not his task. The Principality was sent to keep an eye on Abraham’s descendants.”

“But I ask you again,” Raguel argues, “is it fair to damn someone to the fires of Hell for not knowing that She exists? Aziraphale has set out to share with others—“

“And yet we are not seeing an uptick in souls saved!” Uriel counters.

Aziraphale ignores them all. He’s locked in on an idea—using his sight to find Crowley. When in Heaven, perhaps there is a loophole to the Archangel’s curse. He backs up, hopefully in the direction of where he left his corporation. “I’ll just see myself out.”

“This still comes back to free will!” Camael declares, ignoring Aziraphale. “How is prompting Jacob about the offering and blessing others who do not know She exists any different? Both do glory to the Almighty!”

“I do not vote to force Jacob to do our bidding,” Raguel states.

“Hear, hear!” Camael agrees.

“He has taken his wives and his children, not to mention all his servants—without giving an offering. It’s not a question of ‘if’ we should force him, but of ‘how’!” Sandalphon says with the stamp of his foot.

Raphael steps in front of Aziraphale and the Principality freezes. “Hurry, while they’re distracted. Keep doing good, Aziraphale.”Then Raphael turns so that he is shielding Aziraphale’s retreat.

He imagines he is standing beside his corporation and it is so. He steps into it. It’s like slipping into a cool pool of water on a summer’s hot day. He shifts his shoulders and rolls the kinks from his spine. Then, hesitantly, he reaches out his sight and tries to pinpoint Crowley. Instead, he’s slammed into a stone wall of memory.

_They’re laying in Aziraphale’s tent in Abraham’s compound. The demon is draped over a pile of cushions and slowly feeding Aziraphale pistachios. The angel lounges on Crowley’s chest, both are naked. Crowley strokes his hand indulgently along Aziraphale’s spine. His eyes sparkle with adoration._

Aziraphale startles back into the current time and place. Raphael stands before him again, his aged face worried.

“What was that?” he asks. “You seemed to be seizing, but I could feel your pain! It resonates all around Heaven. It’s caused a stir.”

Aziraphale wraps himself into his physical arms and swallows. “They won’t let me look for him.”

Raphael answers this slowly as if trying to make a child understand something. “Yes, they said that they would curse you to keep you apart. I believe something similar was done by Hell.”

It makes Aziraphale feel sick. “He’s alive then?”

Raphael nods, deliberately, but clearly unsure if he’s supposed to share such information. Relief pulses out of Aziraphale and a sob escapes him before he claps his hands over his mouth.

“Oh thank the Lord,” he blesses and sobs again.

The wrinkles around Raphael’s eyes increase and he studies Aziraphale’s face. “You should leave now before they come to you.”

Aziraphale gasps, trying to catch his breath, and vanishes back to Earth.

**c. 1791 BCE, Haran, Canaan**

Jacob has two wives, officially—they’re sisters. One he loves. One he married because of their father’s subterfuge. Of course, he also has two other, less official wives, as the pair of sisters also each “gave” one of their handmaidens to their husband. Aziraphale struggles to understand, once more, how these situations are considered less revolting than his mutual love for his husband. His thoughts circle, dark and angry for some minutes while he watches the river’s dark water rush by.

Finally, Aziraphale shrugs out of the thick and heavy garments he wore in Sweden and pulls his beloved tunic from the ether. It’s long and tan with small brown beads that tie at the throat. It’s an old friend. He wore it as the animals boarded the Ark and many days since. As he knots it at his throat, his fingers brush the cornerstone reverently. Dressed once more, he stretches out his senses and opens his many eyes.

He sees the river first and its fish and plants. He spreads further. He sees the camp where Jacob sent his huge flocks and herds across the river, as well as the four women and their twelve children (and the assortment of servants he’d somehow collected). Farther yet is Jacob’s older brother Esau and his very large army. Aziraphale studies it. Yes, it is primed to attack. The angel sees that Jacob has sent a gift of camels, sheep, and goats.

He should return to work, but his heart demands that he at least try to look for Crowley. He focuses on his aura and somewhere East—then before he can focus more specifically, the Archangels’ curse smashes into his mind. He’s thrown into another memory.

_They’re walking in one of Knossos’s cobblestoned streets. Their hands are joined and swinging between them jovially. Aziraphale recounts his favorite thesis from the palace’s speakers and Crowley interrupts regularly to point out errors with their claims. The late afternoon is hot. Crowley tugs his hand and pulls him into one of the neighborhood taverns and orders them cool drinks. They sit close, perspiring in the heat, and laugh and bicker and tease._

Aziraphale pulls back his sight and once more stands on the Zarqa River. He looks to the far banks. Through the trees, he can make out a campfire’s blaze. That walk after the speeches might as well be another lifetime ago. It’s so unlike his current existence. It almost belongs to a happy stranger. Then he focuses on the joyful thing he’s just learned—Crowley is alive and on Earth! He wants to shout and dance. Then behind him, a stick cracks and Aziraphale turns slightly. There is no time to celebrate.

“Hello, boy,” he says, trying for warmth. He just sounds tired instead. “Come back for your possessions?”

“Who are you?” Jacob asks, surprised, as he comes up beside the angel on the riverbank.

Jacob is much older than the last time Aziraphale saw him. The angel sighs. Human life is so short.

“My name doesn’t matter,” he finally says.

Jacob looks from the pile of tents, bags, and belongings his family and servants abandoned before they fled across the ford, then back to Aziraphale. He clearly expects to be robbed. Aziraphale sighs again.

“I’ve been sent her to chastise you for not making an offering before you traveled,” Aziraphale says finally.

Jacob raises an eyebrow. “Chastise?”

Aziraphale opens his hands in a shrugging gesture. Jacob does not take it in the manner that the angel meant it, however, and instantly rages.

“My brother is headed this way with his armies. My wife has stolen her father’s household idol and made me the husband of a liar. I am no child who can be scolded!”

Then he attacks Aziraphale like a wrestler. Jacob locks his arms around Aziraphale’s waist and grapples with him. The angel stands, completely flatfooted and unmoved as Jacob huffs and puffs. Jacob’s feet slide backward in the dirt near the riverbank. Worried, the angel twists his fingers together over his middle, just above where Jacob clenches him in a hold.

“Oh dear,” he grumbles.

Jacob staggers away and rushes back. Again, Aziraphale takes the hit without moving an inch.

“Jacob, my dear boy, there is no need for this—“

But he will not be heard. Jacob “wrestles” for hours, only staggering back to catch his breath and resume his attack. Aziraphale tries to stop him multiple times. He even tries to walk away once, but Jacob will not be halted. As dawn is beginning to light the sky, Jacob stumbles on a stone and falls. He stretches to catch himself and then yelps. He clutches his hip.

“Jacob are you all right?” he asks.

“What is your name?” Jacob pants as he grimaces in pain.

“I’m no one important,” Aziraphale says evasively. “Let’s get you some water.”

He summons a ladle from the ether and dips it into the river. Water drips off it as he offers it to Jacob. The man drinks from it greedily.

“I demand your blessing,” Jacob says between slurps of water.

Aziraphale blinks in surprise. “I beg your pardon?” He must have misheard.

“Your blessing! I will have your blessing!” Jacob grabs the ladle and shakes it threateningly at the angel.

“Well, um, certainly,” Aziraphale hums. He lifts his hands over the man’s head and searches for something to say. He does not bless him with a miracle as he says, “Jacob you shall hereby be known as, um, One Who Wrestled God’s—“

And here Jacob leaps up. He yells loudly and victoriously overtop Aziraphale’s next word: “Servant.”

He clearly has not heard the angel at all. In fact, Jacob continues to yell like he’s won every lottery ever and screams at the sky.

“I will now be called ‘Israel!’ I have wrestled God!”

Aziraphale panics. “No, no, my dear boy. You’ve misunderstood. I’m an angel—“

“ _ISRAEL_!” Jacob continues to scream like a madman.

No matter how Aziraphale tries to explain, Jacob refuses to listen. Finally, Aziraphale gives up and begins to walk. Crowley is somewhere to the East, so East he will go.

**c. 1782 BCE, Uruk, Sumer**

Aziraphale did not mean to stay six weeks as the honored guest of King Gilgamesh. Occasionally these things just happen, he’s learned. Some humans are more attuned to his divine nature and seek him out. Gilgamesh is such a man. He is also a heartbroken king.

“Enkidu,” he says as he pours them both a glass of wine, “was sent to teach me to be a better king.” He considers the inside of his goblet. “And a better man.”

Aziraphale studies the man’s profile. The king smiles, but it’s tinged with incredible sorrow. He knows exactly how Gilgamesh feels.

“He was wild, almost like a beast.” He laughs darkly and wipes at his eyes. “But I was the beast—I hurt so many of my own people. Enkidu was wise and protected me from my follies. He could drink me under the table. He was… beautiful.”

  
Aziraphale sets down his goblet and hides his face in his hands. For each of the king’s words, he visualizes a very different man. _Yellow eyes. Black scales that give way to creamy, freckle-kissed skin. Ribbons of auburn hair. “Angel,” he whispers as he kisses Aziraphale’s mouth, “you are so loved.”_ The tears drip. He feels like he cries all the time. Will the weeping ever end?

“Once, we were in the Cedar Forest and he was obsessed with cutting down this tree to build a door with,” here the king’s voice breaks. “Gods, why have you taken my love from me?”

Aziraphale cries with him, each mourning the loss of love.

**c. 1727 BCE, Arkaim, Russia**

The tavern is in the center of the concentric circles of the town. Aziraphale pays the trade of beads and furs he needs for a personal room, plus wine and a meal. People sleep together in large piles in the main hall, so his request requires a high price. It’s worth it. Aziraphale is on edge; he feels brittle. Partially, it’s the climate and its weather. The Ural Mountains loom to the West and they threaten snow. He has no interest in traveling further tonight. A part of him questions if Crowley is about to be cold.

Few people will travel at this time of year due to the cold. The tavern is quiet due to the impending storm. This is broken up as the inn keeper’s grandchildren burst into the room and circle around the table. Aziraphale takes the pitcher from the table and fills each child’s cup with milk. The innkeeper grins in pleasure. She settles at the table and is quickly joined by her adult children. Everyone bustles and chatters as the plates are filled and passed around. Aziraphale sits between three little girls with matching plaits. He pretends, just for a moment, that he belongs.

“Ata,” one boy calls to his grandmother as he stuffs stew into his mouth, “tell us a story!”

The children laugh and comment as their grandmother tells them the story of King Jamshid’s harem girl and her discovery of wine.

“She selected the bottle labeled ‘poison’ and drank it down!” the grandmother says and the children all give appropriate gasps.

Aziraphale sips his wine and lets the dry drink slips over his tongue. He closes his eyes and lets his other sight stretch out. Not too long ago he’d seen Crowley was “East” of Mesopotamia. He worries now that he’s not far enough yet. Maybe too far? Where was his darling love? There is a blip in his mind—just a shock of awareness that Crowley was, but no location. The rock wall of the archangels’ curse crushes him.

_The dry clay tablet leaves a powder of dust on Aziraphale’s hands. He turns it over slowly and reads the cuneiform. Long-fingered hands slide over his and obscure the writing._

_“Come to bed,” Crowley whispers as his tongue slides along the shell of the angel’s ear._

Aziraphale slips from the memory with a sharp gasp. The others at the table look at him in alarm.

“Forgive me,” he mutters and rushes into the solace of his rented room. He’ll stay, but only due to the storm. He takes up his pencil and scroll and begins to sketch dark-varnished nails on a long-fingered hand. He tries to visualize each knuckle and each sweep that hand made through the air.

 _Crowley_ , he thinks, _find me._

**c. 1693 BCE, Únětice, Czech Republic**

Aziraphale tries a new route East after completing a mission in Canaan for Heaven. (If he’d known that those two brothers were going to cause so much trouble, then he’d have encouraged Esau to keep his birthright.) He goes East because Crowley was East… that was years ago, however. The angel rubs the cornerstone around his neck and the braided twine splits. The necklace comes away clutched in his hand. Panicked, he heads into the center of the trading in this city.

Metalsmiths bang away at bronze tools. He watches them form axeheads.

“Do something for you, lad?” one asks, as he smudges soot on his cheek.

“Yes, thank you. Perhaps you could direct me to someone who works with jewelry?”

The man in question lives in a waddle-and-daub-walled house with a straw thatch roof. Aziraphale studies it and notices how much less timber this uses compared to the roof that Crowley once built.

The jeweler grins when he sees Aziraphale studying his home. “Built it myself with my brothers,” he brags with a grin. “You built yourself a home?”

“Yes, once,” Aziraphale admits, clutching the cornerstone in his fist.

“Everyone should have a hearth of their own,” the jeweler agrees with another grin. He kicks out a stool and slides onto it. “Well, let’s see what needs repairing.” He holds his hand out for Aziraphale’s necklace.

“Actually,” Aziraphale admits, “it needs completely reworked.”

His necklace plan will take days to create so Aziraphale rents a room. He spends his days sketching the jeweler and his family. One of the jeweler’s daughters sits as still as she can beside the angel while he draws what she requests.

“A rabbit next to a creek,” she directs. And Aziraphale must admit that his rabbit looks nothing like any rabbit or any other animal in Creation for that matter. The girl is thrilled. “Thank you!”

She claims her pencil drawing like a treasure and rushes off to show her mother. Afraid of hearing an art critic, Aziraphale rises up and wanders out to the market. Today the town bustles with livestock. He wanders over into the market and leans his forearms over a fence to watch a pair of sisters chase thirty or so geese. The animals do not want to go in the direction that they’re being herded. Then, above all the honking and shrieking, Aziraphale sees a little donkey. She’s older and tinier than any beast in these farming towns. He dodges around the angry feathered geese and makes his way to the farmer selling the donkey.

The man looks up as Aziraphale approaches. “Good day, goodman,” he greets.

“Indeed,” Aziraphale greets, “hello!” He walks around the donkey and she follows him with her enormous ears. “Is she for sale?”

“Aye,” the man grunts, “good meat, I promise you.”

“Oh, I’m looking for a traveling companion,” he says.

“She won’t be a lot of good for hauling things. Too small, you see,” the farmer argues.

Aziraphale smiles and touches the animal’s shoulder, “She would only have to carry herself.”

They settle a price and Aziraphale guides her by her lead back toward the jeweler’s home. “I believe I shall call you Ditza,” the angel says and touches her nose. “It means ‘joy’.”

There is additional joy in store for him. Once Ditza is stabled and cared for, Aziraphale collects his finished necklace. The cornerstone has a neat hole through one end and a bronze necklace slides through it. Many necklaces in this area are torc style and do not close, but Aziraphale’s does. A simple hook and eye clasp it closed around his throat.

“It’s lovely,” the jeweler’s wife says in admiration.

“It’s perfect,” Aziraphale agrees.

**c. 1690** **BCE, Dholavira, India**

Ditza might be a little donkey, but she has spunk. She noses at Aziraphale’s back as they approach Dholavira.

“Yes, yes,” he agrees. “I promised you hay.”

The acropolis is developed in a way that reminds Aziraphale of Knossos. He lets the burn of heartache sting, then fade. It never goes away, not completely. Somewhere in Creation, Crowley is waiting for him. In the meantime, he strokes Ditza’s neck and studies Dholavira. It has ramparts and gateways that all lead to organized streets. Wells sit in central public areas and people gather to collect water and gossip. Water is more than a resource here in the arid climate. The people of Dholavira are brighter than most and have dug stone reservoirs for collecting water in the dry months.

They live well in this city. They wear gold jewelry and brightly colored silks.They eat and drink from painted bowls and goblets. The women stitch alternating color silk pockets into their shirts so that their breasts hang in hammocks. They’re still conservatively covered, but their busts are highlighted. It’s a reverse from the Minoan female fashion, where the tops of their dresses were sharp vs down to their navels. Their breasts were either on full display or just a hair away. Crowley had enjoyed dressing in the layers of colored fabric and teasing Aziraphale with the coquettish swell of breast or peak of nipple as she danced on their first-floor roof.

Aziraphale finds lodgings for Ditza and himself. He finds a pale tree bark to draw on here. Then he hunts out his subjects. He sketches women grinding grains and men irrigating crops. Children play in the street and he tries to capture it all. He gives his subjects his works and they study them. Children are always brutal art critics, but he always appreciates their honesty.

Then on a perfectly ordinary day, Aziraphale looks up and in the sea of brightly colored fabrics, there is Crowley. His eyes are as bright as saffron. His hair shines like jasper. 

"Angel?" he yells and he jogs across the market.

Aziraphale leaps up and throws his arms around Crowley's neck. "My dear boy!" he shouts.

Finally.

Finally.

Finally, they're reunited.


	7. c. 1690 BCE, Dfholavira, India - c. 1604 BCE, Mykines, Greece

**c. 1690 BCE, Dfholavira, India**

Each time Crowley imagined their reunion, it was a passionate, scorching thing. Hands tugging and ripping at fabric and bodies racing through searing motions. And the reality is passionate—but it is not frantic. Instead, they meet with long, slow open-mouth kisses. Crowley touches his husband, but methodically and patiently. Aziraphale is trembling in his arms with perspiration beading on his skin. Crowley draws his fingertips through across the small of the angel’s back and feels how it pools there.

“My dear,” Aziraphale pants and ducks his head into Crowley’s throat.

He presses kisses to the skin there and arches up ardently. He’s desperate. Crowley grins, all teeth then tosses back his head and rolls his hip, taking Aziraphale deeper with the change of his angle. Aziraphale moans. He sits cross-legged with his back to the wall. Pillows are scattered all around them as they’ve pushed them aside. Their bedding is in a similar state, as it hangs half off the bed.

Crowley is settled in Aziraphale’s lap, with his knees bracketing his husband’s hips. Aziraphale pants in short huffs and thrusts up into Crowley. Their arrangement makes such movements short, but it rubs the inside of Crowley’s walls and he draws from him a mew of pleasure. His clit pulses with each aborted thrust. With a heady sigh, he traces his fingers up Aziraphale’s spine and over his shoulder. He tweaks one of the angel’s nipples as he shimmies up his length. Aziraphale groans as Crowley lowers himself again.

There is no hurry.

They have time—glorious time.

It’s a dance. It is building, however. Crowley feels it low in his body. His breathing speeds up. Aziraphale grins in his customary mix of sweet bastard. He knows Crowley’s body and knows he’s close. Teasingly, he holds the demon still with his hands braced on Crowley’s hips. He thrusts up shallowly again. Crowley’s mouth falls open and issues a wonton moan.

“My angel,” Crowley begs as he circles his hips and squeezes down on the angel’s cock, “touch me?”

Aziraphale sits back to meet Crowley’s eye and then smiles slowly. “My heart’s darling, I want nothing more.”

He slips his hand between them and his thumb rubs across Crowley’s clit in steady, circling pressure. Crowley keens and increases his pace, rocking up and down. It’s going to end quickly, that is apparent. Both of them are on edge, so Crowley lowers himself and works his hips faster. Aziraphale’s eyes find his and Crowley moans, low and long when he sees how dilated the angel’s irises are.

“Love you,” Crowley moans and topples over into orgasm. Aziraphale coos to him. He whispers a mix of sweet and filthy things into the demon’s ear as waves of pleasure tumble over him. His muscles all clench and his legs tremble. Then, Aziraphale rolls them over and presses Crowley into the mattress. He thrusts forward while panting into Crowley’s ear.

“How I’ve missed you, my darling,” he declares, breathlessly.

Aziraphale’s gaze is adoring through half-lidded eyes when he turns his head. Crowley wraps his legs around his husband and presses his heels into Aziraphale’s asschecks. Using these, he guides the angel deeper with each thrust. 

“Harder,” Crowley begs with a moan.

Aziraphale complies, driving forward so hard that a pillow tumbles off the bed. He’s gasping, low and feral, as he does when he’s trying to stave off his climax. Crowley reaches up and turns Aziraphale’s head so they’re facing one another.

“C’mon, angel,” he says, temptingly. “Give me what’s mine.”

He squeezes his Kegel muscles just as Aziraphale slides in again. It’s instantaneous. Aziraphale’s body goes rigid and he comes. His eyelids flutter closed and he cries out. Crowley rocks as best he can from his place on the bed, squeezing and releasing his pelvic floor muscles. Aziraphale keens and his arms give out. He drops onto Crowley’s chest and the demon clutches him close. They’re sweaty and interlocked like puzzle pieces. They both lay there, staring at one another and catching their breath.

They could speak. They could promise each other the things that they know they want. They could smooth fears that grew during their time apart. They could renew their devotion. All of it would be superfluous. They already know.

Crowley feels Aziraphale softening and he squeezes down before the angel could slide free.

“Stay,” he says, and he’s demon enough to admit that he’s begging. “Get hard again. Stay in me, please. I need you in me.”

Aziraphale must feel hypersensitive because he winces as the miracle washes over him. Crowley sighs as he feels his lover’s renewed erection fill him. Aziraphale doesn’t move, instead, he rests his weight on top of the demon. Crowley’s legs are still tight around his arse. He encircles Aziraphale in his arms in a similar fashion. They share breath and then slow kisses. In time, Aziraphale rocks into Crowley. It’s more about being together as one than chasing their releases. Even still, Aziraphale crests first and comes in hot pulses and dreamy sighs.

Crowley kisses his temple, cheeks, chin, and neck as he softens. “Beautiful,” he whispers, adoringly. He fingers the necklace that hangs around the angel’s throat.

Aziraphale smiles at him, sleepily. “Now you, my dear.”

His cock slips free, but Crowley continues to hold him in his clasp. “Stay. I’m all right.”

Crowley kisses Aziraphale’s mouth then. It’s a lazy trade of kisses. Finally, they shift onto their sides. Crowley is reluctant to let go, like a toddler avoiding separation from her mother. Aziraphale combs his fingers through Crowley’s hair. He tugs it gently, then curls it over his fingers.

“This is shorter than it was,” the angel comments.

Even so, he leans forward and brings the strand to his lips for a kiss. It only falls to Crowley’s shoulders now, so he comes closer than he used to. Crowley grimaces. He’s hesitant to talk about his time in Hell. Aziraphale’s eyes track the minute twitches of the demon’s face. Crowley knows his emotions are being read; there will be no hiding from his husband.

“It got a little… burnt,” he admits, slowly.

“Did they hurt you?” Aziraphale asks, his voice hard. It’s not the warning volley before a battle, but it’s a near thing. Crowley has little doubt that if he admitted the truth, Aziraphale would raze Hell.

“Nothing beyond the standard operations, angel,” he says with a soft smile.

Aziraphale trails his thumb from the strand of hair up across Crowley’s chin. He slowly traces up the demon’s jaw.

“So, yes then,” he interprets. “Oh, my dear heart.”

He kisses him again, tenderly. Crowley melts into him as Aziraphale slides his fingers back into the shorter curls. As they part, Aziraphale studies him sadly.

“Heaven kept me from looking for you. I tried—“

Crowley hurries to shush him. “I found you. That’s all that matters. I’ve been chasing after you. I was a few hours behind you in Sweden. You went, what, seal hunting? I couldn’t find you after you didn’t return to the village.”

Aziraphale groans, frustrated. “I was recalled to Heaven!”

Crowley chuckles. “No wonder I couldn’t track you. I thought you went to the British Isles. I went there… trail was cold. I went back to Sweden, nothing.”

“Where did you catch up to me again?” Aziraphale asks with another pass of his hand through ginger curls. He’s studying Crowley with unadulterated love. It takes the demon’s breath away.

“Somewhere in Persia. I went to the Americas and Australia first, mind. I’ve been just a few weeks behind you for about a year now,” Crowley says, his voice amused. “I tried to anticipate where you’d go and meet you, but it never worked out. If I went ahead, you’d change directions or get recalled somewhere, I assume, then I’d have to rush to catch up again.”

Aziraphale shakes his head, finding humor now where none was weeks ago. He kisses Crowley sweetly. “Thank you for tracking me.”

Crowley preens. “It wasn’t easy, I tell you. I had that damned Hell Camel always trying to—“

Aziraphale sits up on one elbow. “Did you just say _Hell Camel_?”

Crowley drops onto his back again and grins up at the angel. “I did.”

“You have a camel… that was formed in Hell itself?”

“Well, actually, I have three camels, but two are plain old traditional terrestrial camels,” Crowley gives a dramatic, guileless blink to his husband. He does know this is a good joke. “They’re Gamal’s harem. He found them himself and insisted that I bring them along—I call them Cow and Heifer.”

Aziraphale stared. “You named your camel ‘Camel’ in Sumer? Your Hell Camel, I mean. And he has a harem?”

Crowley shrugs.

“But, well, yeah, Gamal’s got game. And I got, well, he was a… reward, you might say. For bad deeds done,” Crowley swallows, suddenly uncomfortable. Yet he trundles on. “The thing is I didn’t actually do what they said that I did, at all. The humans, well, they did it, so I just, um, claimed it in some paperwork. I was really just looking for you in China, but couldn’t find you so I claimed that I inspired the _taotie_ —creatures that harm people, without, you know, eating them. So I got a Hell Camel.”

The room is silent for a split second then Aziraphale chuckles. His laugh makes his smile widen and in a few short moments, the angel is giggling.

“You lied to Hell and got a pet out of the deal?”

Crowley strokes his hand up Aziraphale’s bare stomach and chest with a doting smile. “Just so.”

Aziraphale tugs on Crowley’s hair again and pulls him close for a kiss. “My darling boy, you are too clever for your own good.”

He bestows another kiss onto Crowley’s mouth then slides off the bed and stretches. Crowley wriggles around on his back so he can comfortably prop himself up on his elbows. He watches the angel stride around the barren apartment.

As he does, he snorts and replies, “Me, clever? I’m not the one who left a trail of breadcrumbs.”

Aziraphale studies the demon for a moment, “Forgive me, but I am not exactly sure what you mean.”

Crowley wiggles his toes and grins. “Oh yes, you are, you sly angel. A feather for your wing, really. Absolutely brilliant! I knew the British Isles were out just when I didn’t find any of your sketches—“

“—my sketches?”

Crowley considers his husband for a moment before he sits up and snaps. His belongings, once tied to Heifer’s back appear in the room. Crowley slinks off the bed and roots around in one of the baskets. He produces a bundle tied in wool cloth and hands it to Aziraphale. The angel studies him curiously, before unknotting the bundle and unfolding the fabric. Inside is every sketch he’d drawn in their years apart. Sometimes Crowley had to purchase them from people, and sometimes he simply stole them, but they are, as far as he knows, all accounted for. Aziraphale fingers the bark and animal skin canvases. He traces the charcoal lines and taps his signature “A.Z.F.”.He looks from the pile-up to Crowley with tear-filled eyes.

“I have missed you so very much. I wish I could take you home, my dear, but they’ve destroyed it—“

Crowley interrupts him by gently touching Aziraphale’s lips with his fingertips, “I know, angel, I went back. There was nothing left.”

With his free hand, Aziraphale touches the stone on the necklace he wears. “There was this. It’s the cornerstone from our bedroom wall.”

Now Crowley finds himself choked up. “You saved it?”

“I would have saved it all—“

Crowley is suddenly alarmed, “Angel, they used Hellfire on that place. Did you touch it?”

“My dear boy, I am fine.” He clasps Crowley’s hand in his. “We are together. We are going to be fine.”

Even as he says it, however, Crowley wonders how it can be true.

“You said that Heaven kept you from finding me?”

“It was their path of least resistance to keeping us apart. My ability to locate you is completely gone. They wanted it to be some form of punishment, but they only let me think of you in good memories,” Aziraphale’s voice softens and thickens with tears. Crowley tugs him to his chest and presses his cheek to the angel’s hair.

“Hell did something like that too, but not limited to me. No one with occult powers can sense you,” Crowley says, as he takes the sketches and sets them on top of a basket. “You’re hidden to Hell now. So that’s good news.”

He slides his other arm around Aziraphale and holds him tightly. “But they’re not complete idiots. They knew I was going to try and find you. Angel, you need to know,” and here Crowley’s resolve lessens. Aziraphale wraps him in his own arms and kisses his forehead.

“Tell me, love. We’ll handle it together,” he promises.

Crowley’s breath hitches. "They’ve cursed me in some new and creative ways.”

He feels Aziraphale stiffen. “They hurt you.”

“It’s Hell, angel, not a holiday destination,” he snarks in reply.

“They will never do so again—“

“You can’t promise that. _I_ can’t even promise that.”

Aziraphale huffs bitchily. “I certainly can. What are the curses?”

Crowley leans on his husband, “Hastur did the first one, so it’s not hard to escape. You and I can 'never again have a dwelling together’.”

Aziraphale stiffens and gasps. Crowley chuckles, “Easy, angel. It’s okay! ‘S sloppy language—we can never have _a dwelling_ together… we will have to have _more_ than one and it’ll be _home_.”

Crowley feels Aziraphale relax. “Oh, well, that’s actually quite clever. Very sneaky of you!”

Crowley touches the stone that hangs around Aziraphale’s neck. “The other isn’t as easy to escape, turns out.”

Aziraphale waits. He’s tense but trying to cover it up. Crowley sighs. Aziraphale is far more patient than Crowley will ever be.

“I already told you that you’re hidden to Hell. They wanted to just hide you from me but couldn’t work out how. You know I can sense different emotions than you: pain, sickness, anger, you know the list.” He waves his hand and tries to wiggle away, but Aziraphale is near. It’s been such a long time since that was true that he stays close. “They wanted an extra punishment, for me, that is. I can feel those emotions off you… like they’re my own. Not just sensing them like with humans. I know when you’re hurting, but I can’t come to you because I can’t find you by, you know,” he mimes snapping. “You’re hidden from me.”

Aziraphale’s face contorts with a range of micro expressions. Crowley knows them all. Alarm. Worry. Anger. Guilt. Pain. Sorrow. They flash across his countenance. Crowley touches his cheek and tries to give him a reassuring smile.

“You knew I was hurting,” Aziraphale laments.

“I was hurting too. It was just worst because I couldn’t get to you to help.”

Aziraphale tugs him back to bed and rights the pillows. He tucks Crowley in and wraps the linens around his hips.

“Aren’t you joining me?” Crowley asks, half convinced that Aziraphale is contemplating the logistics of showing up in Satan’s throne room and demanding answers.

Aziraphale kisses the top of the demon’s head. “I need wine. I saw some casks over there in your belongings.”

Crowley settles back on the pillows. “There’s some from that vineyard you loved in Crete.”

Aziraphale clucks with pleasure then hunts in the hampers to find a jug and a clay cup. He rejoins his husband on the bed. Crowley holds up the sheet for him to slip under and tugs the angel against his chest. Aziraphale sighs and leans back into the demon’s grasp. The vessel is sealed with wax and Crowley nearly laughs when he feels Aziraphale notice. The demon expects the knife from the hamper to appear in his hand, so it does. He reaches around Aziraphale with it and, using the sharp blade, peels back the wax from the opening on the jug. The angel gives a happy wiggle as he pours a dram into the cup.

“For my beloved,” he whispers, before holding the cup up for Crowley to drink from.

There’s an appetent glint in his eye as Crowley sips. The angel twists to watch his husband swallow. In fact, Aziraphale’s eyes travel down the demon’s throat and to his chest. Crowley holds the cup out to Aziraphale.

“And for my beloved,” he replies.

The setting sun slips in between the shutters and it casts the room in gold. Crowley shifts so he too can watch Aziraphale drink. It feels like a ceremony of sorts. He touches the necklace once more, then drags his thumb up the pale flesh of Aziraphale’s throat.

“What is joined will never again be parted,” he promises along with his delicate touch.

“Amen,” Aziraphale replies.

This is their renewed promise and they seal it with wine-flavored kisses and wandering hands. The jug never empties even after they are well and truly drunk. (Crowley has always felt that refilling wine casks is less a miracle and more like a maintenance requirement.) They doze at some point during the night, then early in the dark hours before dawn, Aziraphale rummages in the hampers for a snack.

“This rented room of yours is very sparse,” he comments, as he sorts through the snacks he found.

Crowley drapes himself across the foot of the bed, aiming for a seductive pose. “”Snot rented. It’s ours.”

Aziraphale jerks up and nearly topples the stacked handful of figs he’s holding. “I beg your pardon?”

Crowley shrugs, “Hell said I can’t have one home with you. I’ve purchased some sort of dwelling for us in every town where I found your sketches. Just, you know, in case.”

Aziraphale does drop the figs then. He’s across the room in one stride. He pushes Crowley back onto the bed with a violent and adoring kiss and straddles him in the same breath. Crowley’s chuckle is a rumble in his chest as he kisses back.

“I take it that you approve?” he teases.

Aziraphale kisses the tip of his nose and then slides back off the bed for his snack. “It’s a lovely plan,” he agrees, but then his prim nature shows through, “but again, why not choose something furnished? The only reason this one even had a bed is that I anticipated needing one.”

Crowley gives a one-shouldered shrug. “I can sleep just fine on the ceiling, so why bother?”

Aziraphale rolls his eyes and huffs. “I suppose I can see to it then.”

He pops a fig into his mouth and Crowley considers his words. “You’d like to stay here then? In India?”

Aziraphale daintily spits out the stone before tossing it out the window. “I’d rather head back to someplace with culture if I had my druthers. China. Greece, so on.”

Crowley considers blinking but scrunches his nose in confusion instead. He has an opinion about Aziraphale’s vocabulary and makes sure his tone conveys it. “Druthers?”

“Just so. I’m sure I’ll have more to do in Mesopotamia. It’s practically the only place they send me now.” The angel rolls his eyes.

“Not Egypt?” Crowley asks, surprised.

Aziraphale tosses another fig pit out the window. “Why Egypt?”

“I got sent to Jacob’s kids and had to tempt ‘em to murder their little brother. Had ‘em toss him in a dried out well; I figured they’d feel guilty about the whole thing. Turned out, the memo was missing some details: Heaven wanted Joseph sold into slavery.”

Aziraphale freezes in body, but his eyes dart away. He stares, unseeingly, at the floor. This is guilt, but it’s misplaced. The angel is beating himself up for not being in the area when it happened.

Crowley frowns and tries to soothe his husband. “I tried to stop it. I tempted Reuben to take one of his dad’s concubines to bed—don’t judge me. I didn’t have a lot to work with! So it’s my fault. He was shagging Bilhah and wasn’t keeping a close enough eye on the brothers because of it.” Crowley sighs, “Angel, it’s _my_ fault.”

Aziraphale wrings his hands, but the demon carries on. He’s not looking at the angel anymore, but at his palms. He likes to think that he’s good, maybe not in word, but in deed. In reality, that isn’t really true. He hates that Aziraphale has to hear about it from his own lips within hours of their reunion. It also doesn’t help that this topic, human captivity, makes him feel like the worst kind of hypocrite. How many years in Crete did they spend disrupting the trade only for him to turn around and essentially doom a person into it himself?

“I got in a spot of trouble over that because it was apparently to ‘The Plan’ and I’m meant to be thwarting it,” he continues, his voice dropping in volume. “Slavery was apparently part of Heaven’s plan. Ngk! And so was Reuben fucking his stepmother, Bilhah—I don’t fucking get it. How is that ‘holy work’?”

As the angel is troubled, Crowley can feel his own emotions doubled. His brow knits.

“Management doesn’t share its ‘vision’ with me; policy decisions are above my pay grade,” Aziraphale finally says.

Crowley knows this dance. It’s the same argument that they’ve had a thousand times before. Aziraphale will say “ineffable” and Crowley will sneer, then Aziraphale will say he has a duty and Crowley will say that the action is “morally wrong”, and Aziraphale’s anxiety will explode as he tries to balance his allegiance and ethics and Crowley will end up getting him drunk. In the end, their dance is for nothing. Heaven and Hell always get what they want.

Except now they haven’t, Crowley realizes. He jumps off the bed and cups Aziraphale’s cheeks. The demon guides him close and kisses his deeply.

“Bugger management. Up and Down. Let’s go get the kid!” he yells.

“What? Crowley we can’t!”

“Why not? We’re already on their shit lists by being together. We disobeyed—“

“My dear,” Aziraphale hisses, “don’t say that so loud.”

“It’s true and you know it. There is nothing wrong here,” Crowley grabs Aziraphale’s hands and kisses the backs of both. “Love is never wrong, angel. Turning on a brother? Selling someone into slavery? Getting a leg over with your stepmum? Those are wrong. How many years have we tried to interrupt the slave trade? Tell me!”

Aziraphale studies Crowley’s face seriously. “We were systematic, Crowley. We didn’t rescue individual people and ignore the others in bondage.”

Crowley nods thoughtfully. “So we start with Joseph. We take on slavery in Egypt.”

“And when the curse about us living in one home comes back to haunt us?” Aziraphale asks, hesitantly.

“Then we take on the subjugation of others in another place. We’ll build contacts, create schools, break down the system. We’ll keep moving!” Crowley bubbles with energy. He tugs on Aziraphale's’ hands. “ _You_ are my home, angel. I will not be separated from you again.”

Aziraphale steps closer to Crowley. “Nor will I. I also will not let the people of my realm be hurt. And if my staunch Abolitionist husband believes we can make headway on the slave trade in Egypt, then we shall go there.”

His words are backed by the power of Heaven and it makes Crowley shiver. It’s tremendously terrifying, but also extremely attractive. He grabs Aziraphale and tugs him back into the bed to ravage him again.

They stay in India for another two weeks, setting up house in this corner of the globe. Yet, Aziraphale is restless to get to Egypt and see to Joseph’s wellbeing and freedom.

“Look at you trying to thwart Heaven’s agenda. I should be proud,” Crowley admits. He wants to take the words back immediately, however, when he sees Aziraphale blanch. “You won’t Fall, my love. I won’t let you.”

Aziraphale wrings his hands all the same as some men deliver a new table and chairs to their balcony. “Surely this isn’t the Plan. Slavery is wrong. You said yourself that Hell delights in it.”

Crowley can offer no comfort. He simply touches the angel’s shoulder and tries to give him a reassuring smile. “We’ll right it.”

His words hold the very element of what the danger is: Heaven and Hell are good and evil, respectively. However, the terms “right” and “wrong” are not interchangeable with “good” and “evil”. On Earth too many things are shades of grey. Something that is, innately evil, can be done for good, and the reverse is also true. He and Aziraphale understand this.

“Maybe She’s doing something, you know, neutralizing,” he suggests.

Aziraphale raises an eyebrow. “Come again?”

“Right, well, you know, using evil to make good?” he winces as he says the words.

The angel considers this, but the crease does not leave his forehead. Crowley tosses some coin to the delivery boys and shuts the door behind them.

“She does move in mysterious ways,” Aziraphale offers halfheartedly.

Crowley steps into Aziraphale’s space and studies him. “This isn’t your fault.”

Aziraphale flaps his hand at Crowley. “Of course not, darling,” he says, trying for a cheerful tone.

Crowley takes his hand and raises it slowly to his lips. He kisses each knuckle carefully, hoping to imbue his affection and belief into each touch. Aziraphale watches, spellbound, as he does so.

Eventually, they retreat to the new chaise that arrived the day before. Crowley sprawls across it, his legs draped across Aziraphale’s knees. The conversation dwindles away into the calm, warm silences that speak to their connection and long friendship. Aziraphale rubs the flats of his palms down Crowley’s shins, petting him. Scales ripple under his hands, before disappearing back under the visible eye. They reappear with Aziraphale’s next touch.

“I was thinking about the obstacles that might arise from so many domiciles,” he says as he stokes.

Crowley replies with an inquisitive noise.

“Well, I was thinking that our orders may send us anywhere, really. How many times have our travels taken us to very different places simultaneously?” Aziraphale continues.

“Meeting back up could be a challenge,” Crowley agrees, thinking about the logistics.

“Just so,” Aziraphale nods, giving Crowley’s ankle a squeeze. “I believe I’ve sorted out a solution.”

Crowley has long known that the devil was in the details. The fact that his angel also understands this delights him.

“We’ll leave a code,” Aziraphale decides, “it’ll take a little persuasion,” he says while miming a snap. “Something no one but us could interpret.”

They break out a cask of wine and three after that as they plan. The system is fairly simple. Each house will be given a symbol and decorated with hidden references to the code. They giggle at their brilliance as they name the Indian house “Breadcrumbs” after the trail of sketches Aziraphale left unknowingly.

From there, it’s slight touches. Their plates contain flower details already. With a little demonic will (and wine), the petals slowly reform in the art to look like slices of bread. (It helps that no human will know what sliced bread is for several hundred years.) Aziraphale pokes at the mosaic in the floor with his toe.

“Go on,” he encourages, “just a little basket if you will.”

Slowly, the tiles reform to include foodstuffs, including flatbread spilling from a basket. They nod in success and toast their brilliance.

“Now,” Crowley slurs, pleasantly drunk, “how do we share this will each other?”

“Oh, my dear, I forgot!” Aziraphale giggles, before pulling the necklace from around his neck.

Their first home’s cornerstone has smoothed from Aziraphale’s touches. It’s also been fashioned into a pendant with a hole at one end and a bronze necklace that slides through it. Carefully, Aziraphale pulls the pendant from its collar.

With a quick snap, the stone is broken into two pieces. Crowley gives a little cry.

“It’s all right, dear heart,” Aziraphale soothes, drunkenly. “I’m an angel. You can trust me.”

Crowley snorts and watches him miracle the bronze collar into two smaller metal rings. They clasp around each half of the stone smoothly. He hands one ring to Crowley with an intoxicated, but smitten, smile.

“You are my other half, you know.”

Crowley feels a blush crawling up his cheeks and neck. “Love you too, angel.”

He slides the ring onto his finger and watches Aziraphale do the same. Then, with the sort of focus that only the drunk can master, the angel stares at Crowley’s ring. Crowley looks down at it, confused until slowly the face of stone changes. As if engraved in the rock, the image of bread appears.

“Oh, that turned out jolly good!” Aziraphale congratulates himself with inebriated enthusiasm. He grabs his cup and nearly sloshes wine as he does so. “Now you know where I am!”

Crowley studies the miracle and then replicates it himself. He grabs Aziraphale’s hand and checks that, yes, bread also appears on the angel’s ring. He grabs his own cup, which needs a top off (but a glare sees to that. Wine knows better than to disappear in this house.), and holds it up in a toast.

“To my clever angel!”

“To me!” Aziraphale giggles and taps their clay cups together.

They drink, both brazenly happy.

**c. 1690, Tepe Yahya, Iran**

Gamal the Hell Camel thinks Aziraphale’s little donkey Ditza is another member of his harem. Crowley doesn’t have the heart to tell the damned thing that Ditza is so _very_ out of his league. Obviously, because they’re different species and all, but, mostly, it’s because Ditza is very much like his angel. They’re both just innately good. And Gamal is, well, damned. Secretly, Crowley's cheering Gamal on.

“You’re projecting onto ungulates now,” he mutters to himself as he forks hay into their housing for the night.

He’s found them housing at an inn for the night. The idea of an inn is still new in this part of the world, as most people try to invite strangers into their homes. Crowley, however, is not sharing his husband’s time with anyone. He really isn’t sharing his time with his husband in communal rooms.

Aziraphale isn’t far away from where Crowley toils. He’d insisted on taking their belongings into their room, then assured Crowley he’d find somewhere to wait for him before dinner. The demon saw him trundle out of their lodgings and head for the market, which suits Crowley fine.

“Right, you lot,” he says to his small herd of four, “rest up. We leave in three days.”

The initial hike from India to Iran took longer than he or Aziraphale anticipated. For one, Ditza lacked the same stamina that the camels possessed. She did not take kindly to being shrunk down and carried on Cow’s back, either. For another, Gamal sensed Aziraphale’s Heavenly nature and would regularly stop to paw at the ground and make his displeasure known. Crowley rode him to avoid any dangerous interactions, but Gamal viewed Aziraphale as a threat to Heifer, Cow, and Ditza. Several times throughout their journey Crowley would need to dismount, grab the camel by the chin to make clear eye contact, and threaten.

“Oh, dear boy, don’t do that!” Aziraphale would insist.

It hadn’t helped anyway. Gamal still distrusted the angel. He would butt between him and the harem, even though Cow and Heifer had little in way of opinion about Aziraphale and Ditza already treasured the angel. Aziraphale even tried to cast out an aura of peace and calm, but that had upset Gamal more than anything.

“Just ignore him,” Crowley advised the angel before leaning forward over Gamal’s neck and threatening to turn him into shoe leather.

Due to these interpersonal (inter-camel?) issues, Crowley thought it best that he care for the beasts. The inn’s animal stable is sizable, but not large enough that the presence of Hell Camel goes overlooked by the other creatures. They study Gamal distrustfully and keep a wide birth from him. It’s the same for Crowley, of course, but he’s never been sure if animals hate him because of his demonic or serpentine nature. Once Gamal began collecting his harem, Crowley began to wonder if they just hate him personally.

He looks around the pen. Heifer and Cow are down, their legs neatly tucked under them as they chew their cud. Ditza takes a dainty drink of water and Gamal lumbers over to glare his hellfire eyes at the other patrons’ male animals.

“Do not pick up any other ladies,” Crowley instructs. “Or men, we don’t judge here, but I also cannot deal with your one night stands turning into long term relationships every time we stop. We’d have a caravan by the time we got to Egypt.”

Gamal ignores the demon and continues to glower at another male until it stands, unnerved, and moves to another portion of its pen. Behind him is a slender male camel that Gamal studies, interested.

“Oh for Satan’s sake!” Crowley grumbles. “Did you hear a single word I said? We cannot keep collecting camels! Look after the wives you’ve got, you idiot!”

Gamal considers this, turns slightly to watch Ditza join Cow, then returns his gaze to the younger male in the adjacent enclosure. Crowley sighs and lets himself out of the holding fence.

“I’m going to find the angel, get some lunch, and then we’re continuing this conversation!” he declares and marches out. He mutters to himself as he goes, “I’m arguing with a camel.”

The market is bustling. Carts kick up dust and vendors hawk wares. Crowley scents the air with his tongue and tastes the hot oil and the Samboseh frying in it. He wades through the crowds, following the scent. The demon is nearly a head taller than most of them and dressed as an outsider—they move away from the stranger. He orders a serving of the fried, stuffed Lavash bread and pops one of the triangles into his mouth. It’s searing hot and he delights in the burn that rushes over his tongue, followed by the taste of spices, potato, and lamb.

He meanders back toward the inn, chewing his snack and peering into the booths. Pottery here and giant bags of spices there. The vendor with the piles of rugs actually makes him linger. Would Aziraphale want one? The colors are muted browns and rusts, a nice mix of their traditional wardrobe choices. He and the vendor haggle, finally settling on a reasonable price that makes the merchant smirk and Crowley frown. The man’s son rolls up the giant textile and slings it over his shoulder to take to the inn.

“Nice doing business with you,” the merchant says in farewell.

“Yep,” Crowley replies with his customary pop of the last letter.

He wanders further, content when he feels the jangle of Heavenly magic that usually announces the arrival of the Host. He drops his remaining Samboseh and runs toward the inn. The crowd parts before him and, like a sunbeam, he sees Aziraphale.

He sits on a short wall with his pencil poised over the bark he’s using as a sketchbook, but he’s ready to go on the defensive. His eyes are wide as he scans the crowd. Then Aziraphale’s sight falls on Crowley and the demon sees his husband mouth his name. Then the charcoal falls to the ground and Aziraphale is up on his feet. Crowley can’t breathe. He can’t. Then Aziraphale’s arms are around his neck and he’s sobbing.

“My dear boy!” Aziraphale shouts, worried.

He presses his cheek to Crowley’s and clings. The demon is no better. He loops his arms around any part of Aziraphale that he can reach. He rubs his hands down his spine and presses their torsos together.

“Angel, I thought they’d come for you,” he whispers, still panicking, and squeezes him.

They hold each other for longer than the humans are comfortable watching. Slowly, the market comes back to life around them as they lose interest in the little drama unfolding by Aziraphale’s sketching site.

“Do you know where they are?” Crowley asks with desperation in his voice.

“I think toward our inn,” Aziraphale says, clearly dejected.

“So they know,” Crowley replies regretfully and closes his eyes to seek out the other occult presences in the area.

He touches his temple in an attempt to focus his search. Yet, he can’t keep his eyes shut long enough to direct his miracle. His eyelids slip open just enough to see the outline of Aziraphale’s shoulder or the roundness of his cheek.

“I’m here, my dear heart,” Aziraphale whispers in promise. “We’re together.”

Crowley swallows and closes his eyes once more. Then, the angel cups Crowley’s cheek and it startles him so badly that he loses his train of inquiry completely. His eyes snap open wide. It’s not a dream. Aziraphale is still there. He draws a shuttering inhale, nearly a hiccup.

“I know,” the angel whispers, tears in his voice as well. “I have looked for you for so long. We’re together now. It’s all right. They won’t separate us again.”

“Of course not, love,” Crowley says, trying to hide the tremble from his voice.

He ignores the voice in his head that swears that sentiment and this emotional response is too soft, too kind, too unlike a demon. These are the thoughts that Hell has planted in an attempt to undo all his years of loving Aziraphale. While he was in their grasp, those words hammered at him. Now, with Aziraphale’s arms around him, they are but shades compared to his love, he discovers. It’s funny how just one threat from either of their sides has him thinking that way again. He presses his lips to Aziraphale’s palm and focuses his senses.

“Two angels,” he reports, “in the animal pens.”

“Ditza!” Aziraphale frets.

“Hell Camel!” Crowley reminds him.

“Oh, they’ll know we’re here,” Aziraphale agrees, sadly. “I had hoped that they’d just… think they’d made a mistake.”

“Newsflash, sunshine,” Gabriel interrupts, “Heaven doesn’t make mistakes.”

There are a few ways this could go. Crowley instantly decides that the options that include his husband being torn from his side are impossible. He grabs Aziraphale’s hand and tugs them backward. His leg scrapes the low wall in his haste.

“Leave us alone,” Crowley growls a clear warning.

A few locals stop to watch and slowly a crowd gathers. An idea formulates and Crowley lets his body change. His face becomes more androgynous and his Adam’s apple recedes. His tunic morphs to the more traditional female abaya with a mantle. Suddenly, the crowd’s attention focuses. A stranger and his wife are being threatened by another stranger. Aziraphale steps forward and Crowley cowers theatrically.

“Of course you would hide, demon. Willing to sacrifice your so-called ‘love’ when the chips are down,” Gabriel taunts.

“We will not go with you,” Aziraphale snaps, catching onto the plan fast enough. “We fled to escape you.”

Some of the locals are beginning to mutter.

One merchant steps forward, “Âghâ,” he calls to Aziraphale, “is everything all right?”

Aziraphale glances between him and Gabriel. Crowley can see the wheels spinning in his mind. Is it worth endangering these humans?

“No, forgive me, Jenâb,” Aziraphale addresses the merchant using the most formal and respectful title that he can, “it is not. My wife and I are fleeing this man. He means to separate us due to our marriage—our families frown on our union.”

It’s a simplistic explanation, but also one that could move against them. In some cultures, the lack of familiar support could void a marriage. Crowley considers some options and allows his form to change shapes so that he appears to have a protrusion under his abaya. He pulls Aziraphale’s hand back and presses it to his now swollen belly. The angel raises an eyebrow but goes along with the charade.

“Our first child is due in the Spring. We only want to raise our son in peace,” Aziraphale continues, laying it on thick with the anticipated gender of their faux-kid. His pantomime continues, “We have given everything up for that chance. We have put our safety in God, even denying ourselves the land of our fathers.”

It works though. The vendors are stepping forward to encircle Aziraphale and Crowley. They interpret this with their human compassion and understanding. To them, Aziraphale has done the most selfless acts. They cannot imagine being so afraid they’d willingly raise a child outside their homeland. For a husband to be willing to abandon his nation for the safety of his pregnant wife speaks to the level of danger they cannot envision. They’re frightened for them.

“You will leave here,” the first merchant says to Gabriel.

“Ah, no,” Gabriel draws, with amused superiority.

“We have called âghâ-ye Shahab khân,” another merchant assures Aziraphale. “He comes with his guards now.”

Gabriel studies the crowd, which grows larger. Already some of the vendors have called their wives and they stand off to the side, worried. Children wiggle through the legs of their fathers and uncles to see the drama unfold. Behind Gabriel, Crowley sees Uriel and Sandalphon approach.

“Angel,” he whispers, pressing Aziraphale’s hand to his middle in distress.

Sandalphon turned Sodom and four other cities to ash. He does not treasure human life; if given the chance, he will smite them all, no matter how many people turn out into this marketplace. Aziraphale sees him and swallows. Sandalphon shoves some humans aside to make his way to Gabriel, and, in his wake, Uriel walks through them like a queen.

“We only want you to come home, brother,” Gabriel tries, giving a slimy, fake smile.

The people in the crowd offer their opinions on the matter: they are not convinced. The merchant who first stepped forward isn’t either. He seems to have tasked himself with their continued safety and he holds out his hand to Aziraphale.

“My wife Parmida is making us a midday meal. It would be our honor to welcome you and your wife. Please join us,” the merchant says. “I am Farhad.”

Before Aziraphale can introduce himself in return the skies darken with thick grey clouds and lightning crackles around them. The same energy circles Gabriel, Uriel, and Sandalphon. The crowd gasps and falls back. Crowley can’t help himself. He does the same, pulling Aziraphale into retreat with him.

“We only want to be left alone,” Aziraphale cries out, blocking Crowley from the archangels’ sight. “We will do our duty, but, please, leave us be!”

Crowley decides it’s time for an intervention. He turns his face to the sky and shouts at his loudest, “Mother!”

The air around them shimmers and everything slows to the moment between milliseconds. The humans halt, frozen. Aziraphale and Crowley are unaffected, facing off with the three archangels, who are similarly able to move.

**YES,** ~~**GADREEL** ~~ **?**

Crowley hits his knees, all miracles he’s been holding, such as the modifications to his torso fall away in pain. Pain blossoms out of his very essence. His eyes roll back in his head and scales spike out across his skin. He feels his legs try to fuse into a tail. Aziraphale drops to his side in the dust and pulls him protectively to his chest.

“My Lord, must you torture him so?” he asks as he manifests his wings and wraps them protectively around them.

It won’t stop Her, but it does seem to make Her pause.

**MY LITTLE ANGEL, HE’S MADE HIS CHOICE. HIS IS NOT THE PATH OF LIGHT.**

Aziraphale kisses Crowley’s forehead and it helps to ground him. Crowley instinctively wants to hide, so he pushes his face into Aziraphale’s neck. The angel is trembling too. They’re before their Maker and She may do with them what She pleases.

“His choice has changed, My Lord, as you know. You know all our hearts,” here Aziraphale’s voice cracks. “You know how he loves me. You know how I love him.”

Beyond the safe haven of Aziraphale’s feathers, Crowley hears the archangels gag and mutter to themselves.

“We are going to care for one another. And for humanity,” Aziraphale finally says.

Gabriel snorts and Crowley is glad to not have to see the git’s face. “Almighty Lord,” Gabriel simpers, and Crowley bets that the archangel thinks he sounds earnest, “allow us the power to destroy these unnatural feelings and thoughts with your holy fire!”

Aziraphale gasps and Crowley holds him fast. They will face this together. If that is Her decision, then Crowley will throw them into the void and they can fly into the distant stars. It might give them enough of a head start, anyway. They’ll be killed one way or another, he’s sure.

**I THINK NOT** , She says, however, surprising everyone present.

“Ugh, come again, Lord?” Sandalphon asks.

Uriel clears her throat, “Shall we bring Aziraphale home? Perhaps some time in Heaven will help?”

Crowley can’t contain himself anymore, he wrenches his face free of Aziraphale’s neck and addresses God Herself.

“Mother,” he begins, terrified, “please don’t take him from me. Not again.”

**ARE WE MAKING ANOTHER BARGAIN? HOW MANY CITIES WILL YOU BURN NOW,** ~~**GADREEL** ~~ **?**

Crowley’s body nearly seizes. Every muscle screams and he thrashes in Aziraphale’s arms. Distantly, he can hear the angel begging him to hold on. Crowley begins to pass out, as he can see little squiggles along the outsides of his vision. Her voice breaks through even this, burning into him.

**AZIRAPHALE, MY PRINCIPALITY, GUARDIAN OF THE EASTERN GATE, GO TO EGYPT AND PROVIDE COUNCIL TO JOSEPH.**

Crowley feels Aziraphale bow over him as a shield. “I will go, my Lord.”

His voice is so broken that it is nearly emotionless. They’ve been reunited for less than a month and already She has torn them apart.

**DEMON** , She says, stopping sort of using his name-that-was, **I CANNOT ALLOW YOU TO DISRUPT MY PLANS OR FURTHER DISTRACT MY ANGELS FROM THEIR HOLY NATURE.**

Crowley snorts. “Distracted from his nature? Aziraphale is a being of love? How can what we have been any different than what you called him to?”

Aziraphale tenses in a new way and lowers his wings just so he can see over the top. “Darling,” he whispers, “you need to run now.”

Crowley, still shaking with the aftershocks of pain, pushes Aziraphale’s left wing out of his vision. Uriel has a blazing sword, but it’s smaller than Aziraphale’s old blade. Sandalphon carries a staff which shined with holy gold. Gabriel spins his spear in his hand. Crowley frowns. This is going to really, really hurt.

“Crowley, you have to go,” Aziraphale begs. “Save yourself.”

Crowley sits up more, still in the circle of his husband’s arms. “You’d punish him this way, would you?” he asks Heavenward. “He’s your most loving angel, yet you’d ask him to watch his husband’s murder?”

God hums an irritating noise. **YOU ALWAYS DID ASK TOO MANY QUESTIONS.**

“If this is your will,” Aziraphale says, his voice steady, “then destroy me too.”

“What?” Crowley cries, swinging away from the advancing archangels to face Aziraphale. “Angel, no! You have to—“

“What, my dear? Carry on without you? No. I said no one will separate us again and I meant it. So we will face this together.”

Aziraphale is serene as he says it. He cups Crowley’s face and kisses him gently. His eyes blaze with love and determination. Crowley can’t help himself. He lets his hands brush across Aziraphale’s alula bone, making sure to ruffle his feathers as he does so, and he wraps his arms around Aziraphale’s neck.

“We could go off together,” Crowley attempts but lets his words die.

“And what, my love? Be destroyed among the stars? I know you love them, but I’d rather be ended here, on the planet I love with the one I love more than all,” Aziraphale says, his voice tender.

They kiss, slow and affectionate.

It’s about then that the archangels begin to yell.

“What the hell is that?” Sandalphon yelps.

“It’s unholy! It’s unearthly!” Uriel agrees her sword at the ready.

Aziraphale retracts his wings just so and both Crowley and he see Gamal charging at the archangels.

“Ah fuck,” Crowley says with feeling.

**IS THAT A HELL CAMEL?** God asks, incredulously.

Gabriel takes up his place between the camel and himself, his spear ready to stab. The Hell Camel dodges between frozen humans, his hooves sparking and his eyes blazing.

“Don’t hurt him!” Aziraphale shouts, “He’s one of God’s creatures!”

“Well,” Crowley argues, the word stretching out.

**ACTUALLY, NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT.**

Gamal runs wide, avoiding Gabriel, and screeches to an abrupt halt between the archangels and Crowley and Aziraphale. Gamal’s cheeks bulge and thick, white bubbles issue from his mouth. He stamps and paws at the dust, shooting hellfire sparks with each movement. Crowley quickly absorbs any sparks heading toward Aziraphale.

“Enough of this!” Uriel snaps and runs at Gamal.

Her sword glints with hot fire and Crowley doesn’t want to look. He never wanted a camel. He certainly never wanted a harem-gathering Hell Camel, but he also cannot bear to watch the creature die in excruciating pain from a holy relic.

**URIEL**.

The Lord stops the archangel in her tracks.

**I THINK YOU THREE SHOULD RETURN TO HQ. AZIRAPHALE, GO TO EGYPT.**

“But Lord,” Uriel begins.

Sandalphon speaks over her, “Shall I smite the demon then?”

**LEAVE HIM. HQ. NOW.**

  
The three archangels are hidden behind Gamal’s bulk, but Crowley sees the shuffle of their feet that suggests their disinterest in following orders. However, with a bright flash of lightning, they’re gone.

Aziraphale stands carefully and pulls Crowley up as well. Even so, he does not let Crowley leave the protection of his wings. All around them, the world remains at a standstill.

**OFFICIALLY** , The Almighty begins, **ONE OF YOU NEEDS TO RISE OR FALL.**

“That’s not going to happen,” Crowley argues.

**PERHAPS NOT. I’LL BE IN TOUCH.**

Then the world restarts around them. The humans stare in confusion. The villain of this little drama is missing and Aziraphale has wings. Crowley waves at him, gesturing for him to refold them into the ether. As he does, Crowley snaps. The humans all blink and look around in confusion as the whole event has been forgotten. Slowly, they drift away, and the noise of the market returns.

Aziraphale wipes his face. “I could do with a drink.”

Crowley laughs at this confession. “You and me both.”

“Shall we find a tavern?”

They do.

**c. 1685 BCE, Memphis, Egypt**

Their home in Egypt is not grand. Like so many homes in this period, it has a short and squat design which is held up by mud bricks and timbers. It has a pair of neat windows of the front and vented openings on the back. The door is simple and square.

Its central room hosts guests, while its four bedrooms provide space for leisure, rest, and study. The kitchen is directly off the central room and its stone bread oven heats it on cool mornings.

There is a stable attached to it for their one Hell Camel, one tiny donkey, and five (yes, five) additional camels. Cow and Heifer are now joined with Pharnabazus (the only one Aziraphale was allowed to name), the young, male camel Gamal collected in Tepe Yahya, and Oxen. Gamal collected Oxen, who was heavily pregnant at the time, in Ni’u. Since she calved (giving birth to “Calf”, a name that the angel strongly protested to), she had settled in nicely. However, Gamal seemed taken with the idea of progeny and had since bred Heifer and Cow. (Neither the angel nor the demon wants to know what a half-Hell camel looks like. Now they’re going to find out, twofold.)

Crowley refers to the home as “the place of reprieve”. In his mind, it’s the dying gasp of the prisoner before their execution. He does not doubt that the Almighty will smite them soon. Aziraphale finds it more a place to settle and survive. Crowley expects them to die once Joseph has served his purpose to the Plan. Aziraphale expects them to escape by the skin of their teeth.

The angel sees Egypt as proof of their resiliency. If someone were to study their home’s decor carefully, they would find fleeting references to mollusks. A snail in the fresco here, a set of clamshell wind chimes here.

“Life makes its way in nature. Spirals are everywhere, strengthening nature through impossible odds,” the angel instructs.

So the symbol of their home is the nautilus—the swimming cephalopod with a spiral chambered shell. Currently, the spiral shell adores the cornerstone on their rings. Sometimes, Crowley thinks that the angel is preaching to himself like a general prepares his troops. Privately, the demon isn’t sure they can win this war.

Joseph is in jail for attempted rape. He’s been there for nine years now and the sentence does not seem to be ending any time soon. Aziraphale visits him. Crowley does not. Clearly, somehow, this is still Heaven’s plan. The angel might see the spiral they’re in as a chance for growth, but Crowley only sees it like a whirlpool. He worries that they’ll be torn apart in its wash.

He feels stagnant. While he has made some ground in the slave market here, it’s not to the same degree he did in Crete. Too few people share his views about abolition. Their lives are easy with slaves, just as they like them. The academics are not interested in debating it. The court only cares about aesthetics. Crowley has made his pleas to the average citizen with few results.

It doesn’t matter anyway, now. Hell’s missive sits heavy in the pocket of his linen kilt. He steps into the central room to join his husband. Aziraphale has found a sunbeam and moved the table to its center. He dips some bread into honey and swirls it. He hums happily to himself.

“Open something drinkable, won’t you?” the angel calls toward the kitchen, cheerfully.

Crowley rubs his face with his hands. “Sure, angel.”

It’s barley beer here. Sweet, but not without its merits. He selects a cask and sets it on the table before Aziraphale. He leans his hip on the table.

“Angel,” he says slowly, “I have orders.”

Aziraphale sits up sharply. Crowley feels Aziraphale’s panic rebound into himself.

“Where are they sending you?”

“China.”

Aziraphale works his mouth, opening and closing it rapidly. “I’ll come with you,” he finally says.

“No, you know you can’t,” Crowley answers, his tone gentle.

“I know no such thing! I’ll pack and we’ll depart immediately,” the angel argues, his snack forgotten.

“Aziraphale,” Crowley calls with a sigh, “you know you have to stay with Joseph. She didn’t imply it. She didn’t ask someone else to tell you. She Herself told you. You can’t disobey.”

“I’m sure I’ll be back long before anyone knows I’m gone,” he answers with a sniff.

Crowley pulls the letter from his pocket and stares at it. “No, I’m not sure that you will.”

This stops Aziraphale. He reenters the central room and stops short of Crowley’s stance.

“What do you mean by that?” he asks, but his tone is weary.

“See for yourself,” the demon suggests and offers the letter to his husband.

Aziraphale considers it. “I’m not sure it’s safe for me to touch.”

“Er, ngk, yeah.” He snaps the letter open and frowns at it, “You want the official decree?”

“A synopsis, if you would be so kind,” Aziraphale replies.

Crowley considers rising to the bait of “kind” but decides to simply answer the question. “I’m to go to King Jie of Xia and convince him to construct a new palace. It’ll take time; it’s a long term project, angel.”

“So this is how they separate us,” Aziraphale says, his voice hoarse with sadness.

“No,” Crowley argues, “we agreed that we’re not going to be separated again, right?”

Aziraphale is suddenly frustrated. He expresses his frustration as anger, as often is the case. Crowley feels it himself and watches it play out on Aziraphale’s face simultaneously.

“Yes, but you’ve been singing dirges to our marriage since we arrived here!” Aziraphale says, his voice clipped.

Crowley rubs his face and nods. “I have. I was waiting for the knife to fall on our necks.”

Aziraphale huffs, angrily, “Well it hasn’t and now you’ve moped and pouted for years! We’re going to be taken from each other, just like you wanted!”

“Wanted?” Crowley snaps in a strangled voice. “Wanted? No, angel, I never wanted this. I just expected it. I knew that it would happen—“

“And now it has!”

“—and I knew we’d come back together. They can’t keep us apart. They know that now. I was just waiting for them to try.”

Aziraphale doesn’t react to Crowley’s words, but fidgets with his tunic. He frowns. “The timing is suspect.”

“How so?” Crowley asks, irritated himself. “Because the camels are going to calf?”

“Joseph interrupted dreams for two of Pharaoh’s officers of the court,” says Aziraphale, his eyes distant.

Crowley stares. His mouth hangs open for a moment. “When did this happen?”

“About a month ago,” Aziraphale admits with a wince.

“So,” Crowley stands up to his full height, his hands waving through the air, “things are actually starting to happen and you figure, what? You’ll forget to mention it to me? Now I’m being sent off and you suddenly remember?”

“Now that’s not fair, Crowley! I wasn’t sure it would even interest you. It wasn’t as if it were something you could thwart. One of those men was hanged—“

“Thwart?” Crowley sputters. “Thwart? What does that have to do with _anything_? This is about us communicating!”

“Well, I didn’t feel that I could!” Aziraphale counters with his own brand of frustrated anger.

“Why’s that? Because I might step in the way of Heaven’s plans?” Crowley yells back.

“No, you daft fool, because I thought you might decide that was the death throes of our relationship and leave me!” Aziraphale shouts shrilly.

The room is silent but for their angry gasps.

“Shit, angel,” Crowley mutters as he lets his arms fall to his sides. “I’m sorry. Look at me, I’m apologizing. I’m sorry, okay, I didn’t mean to let it get this bad.”

“It’s not,” Aziraphale pauses and makes a face before continuing, “bad, per se. Heartbreaking maybe.”

Crowley winces. “It’s not. It’s a rough patch, angel. Like the end there in Crete. We’ll be ok.”

“Are you certain?” Aziraphale asks and Crowley swears that he is looking at him with more than just his Earthy two eyes.

“Yeah,” Crowley says with a shrug, “of course. Nothing is going to part me from my beloved.”

Aziraphale studies him and then gives a tentative smile. His eyes focus on the letter on the table between them.

“I can’t disobey. You’re right,” Aziraphale admits, his voice smaller than it was. “I do so want to go with you though.”

“I want you at my side, too, angel. You’ve got your work cut out for you here, I think. It seems like a long term project too,” he says.

“You think this is how they’ll keep us separate? Long assignments?”

Crowley reaches for Aziraphale and the angel takes his hand. “I haven’t a clue, angel. I do know that we’ll find each other again. We have our system now.”

He brushes his thumb across the ring on Aziraphale’s finger.

“What if I’m not here?” Aziraphale worries. “What if I send you a symbol, or you send me one, and we don’t know where it is?”

Crowley strokes his throat thoughtfully. “Go back to the plot in Knossos. We’ll leave a cipher or something for each other there.”

Aziraphale considers it. “Might be dangerous.”

Crowley shrugs. “Better than a life without you.”

Aziraphale kisses him then and Crowley pulls him close.

**c. 1604 BCE, Mykines, Greece**

Crowley has no idea if the fall of the Xia dynasty is what Hell wanted from his job, but that’s what they got. The Battle of Mingtiao took King Jie from the throne and placed Tang of Shang there. If given his opinion, Tang was a far nicer guy than Jie ever was. Sometimes this job made no sense.

Gamal stumbles as they make their way up the hill into the city proper. He’s well-aged for a Hell Camel at nearly 300 years old. Yet, this last trip seems to have taken it out of him. Crowley motions for the camel to lower to the ground and he slides off.

“These hills are tough on the knees, huh?” he asks, touching the thinning hair around Gamal’s closest hump.

“MAKES ME FEEL LIKE DEATH WARMED OVER,” Azrael jokes and Crowley swirls around to see the Angel of Death.

“That was terrible,” the demon states with a glare.

Azrael shrugs. “I DON’T GET A LIVE AUDIENCE TOO OFTEN.”

“That wasn’t any better.”

Gamal sighs and lays his head on the road. Crowley groans.

“Aw, Gamal, buddy! Not yet!”

“SORRY, CROWLEY. YOU KNOW HOW IT IS. ONCE THE LEASE IS PAID, YOU ALWAYS GET TRANSPORTATION TROUBLE,” Death claims and touches the camel on the neck with his scythe.

The Hell Camel sighs and his spirit lifts away.

“So back to Hell with him, huh?” Crowley asks, crossing his arms across his chest. “I guess I could go find him again, I mean if I wanted.”

“SPECIAL ORDERS FOR THIS ONE. HEADED TO THE AFTERLIFE.”

“What? No way! He’s a Hell Camel!”

“THERE’S ALWAYS AN EXCEPTION, YOU KNOW HOW IT IS.”

“Stop saying that,” Crowley snaps, but watches the camel and the Angel of Death fade away.

“SEE YA.”

“Yep,” he replies with his customary pop on the letter “p”.

Gamal’s body gives a whoosh and disappears into dust. Crowley kicks at it with the toe of his sandal.

“Figures,” he mutters, before collecting the basket of goods and tossing them into the ether. It’ll be a bitch to retrieve them, but way better than hauling them around the city.

It had taken months to find this place. He’d kept a close eye on the engraving on his ring. The Nautilus stared back at him for nearly forty years. Then, one day, it changed to a road. Then, weeks later, a door. Finally, after a number of other unembellished, unconnected images (a cloud, an ewe, a toasting fork, a pile of logs), it shifts and stabilizes into a stone gate with lions sculpted into the archway.

At the time, Crowley had traced the engraving onto papyrus and then carefully sketched it larger, line-by-line. Then, using his charcoal drawing, he’d asked every traveler or merchant he’d met during his wanders West if they knew where the gate was. In time, he’d gotten his answer and made his way to Greece.

He climbs the hill, now Gamal-less, and sees the beginning of village life. People move around and voices call to one another. He trudges behind a cart until it suddenly turns and there is the gate before him. Crowley holds up his hand and compares the engraving on his ring to the gate. Aziraphale is here… somewhere.

He approaches the gate and feels the pulse of the angel’s magic. Crowley studies the piers of the arch until he finds a small piece of stone that hums with holiness. Crowley squats down and brushes it with his fingers. The stone hums and falls away. Inside, hidden behind the rock facade, is a hollow bamboo reed stoppered on each end with wax plugs. Crowley tugs it free and peels back the wax as he walks away from the gate.

Inside is a piece of papyrus, which slides free with a soft swish. It’s blank.

“All right, angel,” he whispers, “what’s the trick?”

He finds a _kapeleia_ and settles in with the blank textile and a large jug of wine.

He runs his fingers across the papyrus and whispers, “Angel, it’s me.”

Slowly, images appear on the page: the molecular structure for resveratrol.

“Red wine,” Crowley reads amused. Then he looks to his clay cup. “Oh, that’s my clever angel.”

He upends the cup over the papyrus. It soaks in, turning the papyrus russet before vanishing with a puff of smoke. In its place there another of Aziraphale’s sketches, this time a map. With a chuckle, Crowley jumps up and drops some coin on the table, and races off.

The map takes him to a home with a bright blue door. He touches it and it swings open into a courtyard. He enters the home's front hall and looks around curiously. A fountain bubbles in the center of a walled garden. It’s smaller than their home in Knossos but larger than Dholavira or Memphis. Aziraphale clearly wants to put down roots.

The front hall is decorated with a brilliant fresco of vines. Some of the fruit glints gold and it makes Crowley smile. In the next room, there is an empty office.

“Waiting for me,” he murmurs.

The next room, however, is clearly their bedroom. The frame is heavy and wooden, and it is covered with an abundance of blankets and rugs. Crowley smiles when he sees the rug he purchased for them in Iran. He pulls the door shut and walks right into Aziraphale.

“Cr—Cr—Crowley!” Aziraphale shouts after several false starts.

Crowley throws his arms around the angel’s neck and kisses him. Aziraphale grabs him just as tightly and returns the kiss just as passionately.

“Angel!” Crowley greets breathlessly.

“Welcome home, my darling,” Aziraphale replies with another deep kiss.


End file.
